Building dealcharts - day 540
a 2 year journey
June 23, 7:20am.
My entire career as a software developer I have had this notion that it takes two years to build anything new. I can’t remember where I picked up this idea but I have always found it to ring true. To build something real and have it work and have users understand it and adopt it always seems to take two years even when the original idea was to build something in a week. It’s not something we can ever really say aloud - hey I will be done with the project you want in two years - but it is what it is.
540 days of working on dealcharts for a few minutes to an hour a day and it’s starting to feel alive. Here is where we are at SEO signal wise:
59 keywords are in the top 3, for example TAOT 2024-A is right up there in the top 3 with the big boys, S&P and Finsight.
We started with CMBS but this keyword is Auto ABS - we have branched out. We are the little purple bubble on the left, chasing the big green giant on the right - this chart is ranking 19 websites monitoring 1,323 keywords (mostly deal names).
Is there any value in this data? It tells us we are in the conversation but the best at nothing. If you spend some time digging through the details it looks like our best keywords are either older deals (paid down) or newer deals. Older deals rank because our competitors don’t have a reason to put fresh content out on them and newer deals rank because we are super timely putting up content (which is good).
To date we have published 2 asset classes, 789 deals, 5,825 charts of which 4,800 pages have been indexed by google.
My vibe:
The focus in this series is to do data things, not write about how to do data things. The world feels like it’s spinning faster than ever, a new AI project launches seemingly every other week, there is this urge to be done faster, launch sooner. But we aren’t going for done (meaningless word) or a launch - there are more reasons to build.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend!
zac
Charts are from semrush.com, google search console and sometimes dealcharts.org.
The information provided in this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. I am not a registered financial advisor. Any mention of financial instruments, bonds, or stocks is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold. Always consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Command Reveal makes no representations as to the accuracy of data or any attributions