On March 24th, I announced to Coffee Hero readers that the site was going away for now. Although I touched on this in the post Rebooting Coffee Hero?, I’ve had more time to think about why the Coffee Hero site failed to be as successful as I had hoped. Here are the reasons I came up with.
- No clear distinction between what belonged on INeedCoffee and what belonged on Coffee Hero. Later I would use length of article as a metric, but it was an after thought.
- I spent way too much time on Flickr uploading and tagging images. Adding links back to articles was almost a complete waste of time. Flickr users just want to look at pictures. They have almost no desire to read articles to learn more about those photos.
- Topics were too haphazard. One post would be about an episode of the TV show Dirty Jobs. Another would be about drinking coffee in Thailand. Then there would be some tips on buying a French Press. Although there were readers that found each of those topics interesting, there were few that found them all interesting. The site needed a clearer focus.
- Having 5 writers was great for generating content, but the site did a poor job of personalizing each of the contributors. I should have studied other blogs that use a handful of contributors and how they solve that problem.
- Maybe the most important reason was the lack of a true HERO. The writing voice would jump from personal to “just the facts”. Who was the HERO and how has that title been earned? A year later I look back at all the posts and I can’t find the HERO. I’m sure many readers that had seconds to decide if the website was relevant felt the same way.
Unless someone wants to give me a fistful of money for the domain, Coffee Hero will return at some point. A version 2.0 will only surface after I have come up with a plan to incorporate the lessons learned above.
You made some very thoughtful comments on your website. When I would read Coffeehero.com I would always sort of wonder what the next topic would be. So you’re right, it lacked cohesion. I think hero is part of the problem. It is ill-defined outside of the comic book definition; and sets fantastic expectations. Maybe, just keep the name and something will come up in the future.
Secondly, are you annoyed by people (mostly men) at coffeeshops on their laptops. I don’t get it. When I leave my house I want to connect with people because it is meaningful. However, these guys practically have cubicles at their tables with all the mess and paperwork. And then they seem to surfing facebook.com too.
I’ve always wanted to go into a crowded coffeeshop with a lot of paperwork, a busy look on my face, and then bust out an etch-a-sketch.
Oh yes, the coffee shop refugees. Instead of 4 friends sitting at a table sharing coffee and discussion, you now have one person with a computer, computer bag and power cord taking up an entire table.
Your etch-a-sketch idea is hilarious.
[...] dealing with the branding problems with Coffee Hero, a friend pointed out that this blog had major problems as well. It was too [...]
I never felt the lack of a true HERO, the Coffee Hero has always been a pretty clear role model for me: going above and beyond the call of duty to save the people from bad coffee.
@Elvis – Thanks. I do plan to relaunch the site with a Seattle focus. No more posts about Thailand, Futurama or other distracting topics.
[...] Coffee Hero website. I believe that I solved the branding problems that I discussed in the post The Lessons Learned From One Year of Coffee Hero. Coffee Hero needed a clear mission that was distinct from INeedCoffee. Taking time off made me [...]