Hi guys!
I don't mind you playing devil's advocate at all. I rather have that than a yes man. For sure!
I guess I should give a little background as to how I came up with this idea. Believe me, I'm not crazy. Well, maybe that's to be decided yet.
Okay. I started working on computers over 25 years ago on a Commodore 64 when code was the only thing you had and it was stored on a cassette player and your monitor was a black and white TV. It took 3 days of playing around to code a pong game for the first time but I learned a lot. Especially since the code book sent with the C64 (which I still have) had errors in it.
I own Juliet's Cottage, an online home dec store featuring custom upholstered headboards (I was the second person to offer slipcovered headboards, our speciality) bedding and window treatments. I went online 6 years ago with 25 years of decorating experience behind me. I built the site myself using the templates of the host. Six years ago, 2 companies and myself were the only ones listed on Google, Yahoo or MSN when you searched for upholstered headboards. Today, there are 100s of companies listed. I took them 6 years to catch up with me though!
If you visit the site, it may seem a little dated. That's because I'm in the process of changing it to another location and making it an information site for health reasons. Unfortunately, I just can't do the physical work anymore.
This is where the 600 people come from. Six years of collecting highend, targeted names via the newsletter sign up. And they're still signing up today. (I had an average of 10000/month traffic last year.) I've been helping them find great things for their homes for years and most of them come to me to help them when they don't have time or know where to search.
I'll be introducing them to the new shop listings for the home sections but I've helped them find everything from island resorts to baby gifts. My customers really are like friends and they know I'll help them with whatever they need, if I can. They are very busy and don't have time to search for the best places to shop.
They are part of the reason I started this. I want to build a site for people with too little time and/or patience to search the overcrowded net for what they want. They want ease of shopping and to make it easy to shop their favorite stores. They don't want to have 20,000 listings for upholstered headboards. They want a few stores that offer quality products and great service.
Well, I've run out of time right now. I hope I've answered a few questions.
Thanks for asking. I'll be happy to answer any questions. I wish I could start building the site so you could "see" what I'm talking about but I have to wait for hostgator to update to Joomla 1.5 before I start.