Survey says…
Last month, I asked footnoted.org readers to fill out a survey and more than 200 of you responded in exchange for a chance to get access to the next password protected post. One of the things people said was that they were willing to pay for actionable information, so we’re trying a footnoted experiment again today. Last night, I randomly selected 10 people (from those who included their email addresses) and sent a note to them this morning about our next protected post. If you did not receive one of those emails, you can still access the post by making a $50 donation using the buttons in the upper-right hand corner of the site. Once I receive confirmation of the donation, I will send you access to the post. Because information like this is best when it is limited, this will only be available to the first 15 people who respond. The site will continue to offer posts like this from time to time solely based on interesting things that we find buried in the filings, which is why this is a pay-as-you-go plan.
I understand that some readers find this controversial, or even distasteful (as one reader wrote). But there needs to be a way for the site to sustain itself and the money received from donations and limited advertising has not been enough to pay for routine site upgrades, like the one we’ll be doing this weekend, let alone my time. If you value the information footnoted.org provides, I hope you will consider making a donation to the site.
Advertisement
|
Posted in |
 11 Comments » |
February 2nd, 2007 at 12:45 pm
I hope the pay to read works well for you and those who pay find the information timely and profitable. Have you considered releasing the posts to the general public after a period of time? That way you benefit from the subscription fees, the information can be put to use by the subscribers and casual readers will not feel alienated.
Yaacov
February 2nd, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Yes — I do plan to do that in the future. But since this is only the second time I’ve done a paid post, I need to figure out a schedule that works and is equitable for those people who paid for the information. As regular readers might guess, these are not “day trades” and have a longer-term perspective that could take several months — or longer — to prove out. I’m open to any suggestions that people have.
February 2nd, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I’d suggest a few options… (1) ask the people who pay how long you should wait to release the info — if they all take action within a week, they’d be really happy if you release the info and cause an actual move in the security mentioned… Or they may not want you to release the info if they feel like they could have gotten the same info just by waiting three weeks…
(2) Wait until the actionable thing happens. I.e., if you’re posting that Steve Jobs is going to go to jail… release the info when he goes to jail.
(3) Open it up to more people after a while… maybe on a dutch-style auction. The price starts high ($50) the first week, drops to $40 the next week, etc. That way the market may help you determine how much your ideas are worth…
You probably need to provide some additional context for what the high-priced info actually is. Did you find someone doing something right? Is it a short opportunity? Is it a hint at upcoming M&A/LBO activity? How explosive could the information be? How timely?
At this point (speaking as an armchair marketer providing feedback) you haven’t given me anything to know whether that information will be worth my $50 or not. What you think is actionable I may not consider actionable…
Good luck. I hope the $750 (15 people x $50 each) will help pay for a few things…
February 2nd, 2007 at 6:13 pm
PS. Your copyright at the bottom of the pages is still (c) 2006…
February 2nd, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Thanks for the suggestions, Jason, and for the reminder to change my copyright date, which I’ve just done. In hindsight, I should have been more clear about exactly what actionable means to me. In this case, it was an unusual change in control agreement that I thought smacked of a potential merger sometime in the near future.
As regulars know, I like to look at these sorts of arrangements and have had some successes in finding them in advance. In the past, I’ve kept this information to myself and simply invested. But based on the survey responses, I decided to offer it as premium content for a fee. My last “find” which I did keep to myself, yielded a 60% return in a little over a month; the one before that yielded a 42% return over six weeks. That’s information that I think is worth paying for.
February 3rd, 2007 at 9:10 am
Michelle;
So I made a donation of $50, and I’m going to get whatever I get. Great.
At the outset $50 doesn’t seem like much money. But consider that a Motley Fool membership is $25, a Wall Street Journal Online subscription is $85 (I no longer have one), an Outstanding Investors Digest subscription is $200, and on and on and on. Pretty soon, folks are spending lots and lots of money for content.
Given that scenerio, where doed Footnoted.Org fit in?
You are providing a service, for which I agree, you should be paid. Yet you have little to no advertising. While I personally am glad you don’t, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you did.
Lastly, I don’t like PayPal. I have made a donation to you and you should get confirmation that I have done this. The bigger question is will you ever see the money.
My son had an on-line business, and at one point PayPal owed him more than $5000. PayPal has been making irregular payments to him over the last two years, but when we last talked, they still owed him about $1500.
So while it may initially be easier for you to use them, you might want to think about getting a direct merchant account, if you are going to continue to accept donations.
Wax
February 3rd, 2007 at 10:13 pm
This pay for premium post strategy is interesting. I will be interested to see how it works out for you.
At Fat Pitch Financials, I decided to create a walled off area for “premium” content called Contributor’s Corner to help support my blog. I charge a cut-rate price of $100 per year (or $12 per month) for this daily updated service that focuses on current special situation opportunities. Most of the information is actionable. So far, I’ve developed a moderate user base but it still doesn’t cover the cost of the significant time commitment it involves on my part. My greatest reward so far has been learning from customers comments.
I’m not a big fan of investing on mergers as an individual investor, but if your premium research expands beyond information regarding potential mergers let us know. Maybe you could hint at the subject nature of your actionable information, so we could know if that information would be of use for our own portfolios.
Good luck and please keep us informed of your experience with this pay-as-you-go experiment.
February 5th, 2007 at 4:25 am
Hi,
I’m a new hopeful in business journalism. I am based in India and have recently joined a prominent news agency. I was thrilled to stumble onto your site after I took up a training offered to us on SEC filings. I can understand the need for the $50 donation, however, given exchange rates and such things I don’t myself making that donation any time soon. I hope you will consider putting up information for everyone to read.. even if it is delayed.
Keep up the great work. Everything on the site I have read so far has been an eye-opener.
Vikram.
February 5th, 2007 at 10:03 am
So there’s a chance I could donate $50 & get no info if I’m #16. I wish there were a way for you to let the readers know if all 15 spots have been taken. I would do it, but the church raffle/lotto style of doing it is a turn off. Otherwise, love the site & you do deserve to get paid.
February 5th, 2007 at 10:18 am
That’s a fair point, Bubba. I didn’t receive 15 donations as of this morning, so there’s still availability. So if you’re still interested, I’d certainly appreciate the donation. Also: it was meant to be more like Woot.com and less like the church raffle.
As for making the research available at a later time for everyone, I will do that. But chances are it’s going to be awhile since as I mentioned above, this is not a day-trade idea, but something with a bit longer shelf-life.
February 5th, 2007 at 11:15 am
OK, I’m in for $50 (you’re a Woot fan!). Keep up the good work.