The Latest Casualty – Moddin.net
When Futurelooks started up, I never thought that I’d be able to run it as a full time business. However, after over seven years, give or take a few months, the site has proven itself to be quite sticky. It seems that over the years, for every site that is able to rise above the rest, a balance needs to be maintained. Thus, a handful of sites need to go dark to balance out that success. The latest victim is Moddin.net.
I received their news release entitled “The end is nigh!” Here is a snip from it:
It’s a sorry day for me to be writing this news post but sadly it is an inevitable one. As of 31st January 2007, Moddin’.net as we know it will be closing its doors for good. Despite some major plans to overhaul the site and turn it into a community driven modding experience (read: Web 2.0), as that is what the scene needs, at the early part of last year the team has struggled to find the (spare) time to carry out the work involved despite all being willing.
You can find the full email posted right here.
Apparently, Moddin.net has been online for over 5.5 years. After a quick look at some of their content, there shouldn’t be any reason why they couldn’t stay online for another 5.5 years. However, to the trained Web Entrepreneur, it is pretty clear why they couldn’t make it.
First off, Moddin.net doesn’t make any money. I can see that from the usual suspects. Their Google integration isn’t optimized and they don’t have any direct ad sales. You would be amazed how quickly things get done when the funds are available. The design is also extremely dated. My first impression is that the site hasn’t been updated in ages, while in reality, they have had some recent articles posted in the last year.
So the content is decent on Moddin.net, aside from the dated look, why can’t they sell an ad to support themselves? If we look at reality, no one is ever known for being the “Best Writing Author”. The ones that write well don’t sell books. That’s why they starve. The “Best Selling Authors” may not be the best writers, but they market themselves well and sell a lot of books. As a result, even though their first book may not be the greatest, they get a chance to keep trying.
It seems that Moddin.net is missing someone on their team that is good at marketing and sales. You can be as passionate as you want about something, but if you are not able to sell that passion to others, then who cares. The telling detail comes from this quote from their farewell release:
Because of our plans to relaunch the site suppliers held off with advertising campaigns which meant hosting costs were coming directly from my pocket and unfortunately it is not economical enough to carry on this path.
Why would you stop selling? Why would you shoot yourselves in the foot by letting your suppliers know that you’re relaunching? Furthermore, why would you stop “Business as Usual”? Companies always want the bigger better deal. If you tell them in advance that something better is coming along and stop producing OF COURSE they will wait. In the meantime, you starve. Without consistent cash flow you go out of business, and that’s just what has happened. Even brick and mortar businesses continue to operate throughout renovations so that they can fund the renovations to offer a better experience for their customers.
Although I feel sorry for them and I’m sad to see another one of our own go down the tubes, what happened is really a self fulfilling prophecy. They did everything right to seal their doom, despite their passion for the content. So the lesson today is learn to sell and market yourself. Without those skills, you could be a rocket scientist and no one would give a crap. Oh, and never tell people a better deal is coming. The best possible deal is always right in front of you, right now.