I commend you for the time and money you’ve put into building the Puck Preps site - - coverage and discussion like that of the CHL is always a good thing.
Don’t ever feel compelled to apologize for watching video as opposed to in person. It’s laughable to have wannabe “scouts” disparage your work and then whine about how much time they have to spend “scouting” on the road. You’re able to watch video of four or five games in the same amount of time it takes the “scouts” to travel to and from a single game. That’s certainly a more efficient means.
It’s nothing more than jealousy and feeling inadequate about how a pile of rumpled notepads measures up against an actual website.
If I could offer some unsolicited suggestions, I’d implore you to forget about trying to project/guess the draft order. There’s already a plethora of hacks doing that worthless exercise. Having a clown like Joke Marek get fired for spoon feeding some gimp the names of each pick a few minutes before it was announced proves just how useless this is.
You’re going to build your reputation and credibility far more by compiling your own rankings when people look back in a few years and see the league MVP who went late in the 2nd round was a guy you had ranked in your top five for the priority draft ranking.
Not sure if you’re hoping to get hired by an NHL team as some of these self proclaimed “scouts” seem to be aspiring for, but the main thing is that you’re already able to monetize your work now.
I’d recommend adding a bit more free content as a means of encouraging people to purchase the premium content.
Such as publicizing your rankings for all to see but only giving access to see your scouting report for each player to premium subscribers. This is going to generate interest in your rankings - - people are going to be curious as to why you’ve ranked a guy in the mid teens when he’s projected to be a top five pick by others. And then after the fact, fans are going to see that a guy their team got in the third round was someone you had ranked as a first rounder and they’ll want to know what it is that you see in him.
Lastly, if you’re charging $200 for the year I’d recommend charging more than just $20 per month. The recurring billing structure is a good set up but let’s be honest - - the majority of interest is going to occur around occur around draft time, not so much in the middle of summer. Charging somewhere between $30 and $40 a month is more realistic to deal with the cheapskates who try to game the system by signing up during draft month then immediately canceling and it would help entice them to sign up for the annual $200 package from a value perspective.
Keep up the good work and all the best with your endeavour, my friend.
Point of clarification, I do not believe he is the owner of the site, I have to believe he is a volunteer scout of some sort, generally I don't believe scouts are paid on those kind of sites, now I could be wrong.
Secondly, I'm biting and replying even thou I'm fairly certain you are posting in a way to troll a bit, which I thought was against the rules on here, but I'm not an expert in that in any means.
So again, I'm an engineer whose background is in efficiency and productivity, making the best product and most profit for the least cost. I've done it for years to the point that I'm basically retired in my early 50s. Not a flex, just is what it is. I think your idea on the video may have merit because it knocks down cost considerably, which I'm sure is a major factor in Jordan's decision not to go to games, not that its more efficient.
The issue becomes the product and is it good enough to sustain that. I was a customer last year and their business model is good, it tries to get parents early and then continuously rank age groups to continue to get subscriptions. Its rather effective depending on the parents level of insecurity and need for information. You may get them for 3/4 years. I struggled with the quality of the lists, which varied significantly from what happened on draft day. That's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, as Jordan could be smarter then the entire OHL scouting community, the struggle is that with an early look at his list, its simply not true. I go back to my son, who Jordan had ranked very high. He was a late pick and while I appreciate Jordan's optimism in him, I don't see the OHL in his future next year, he is simply too far away. One of my sons teammates from last year was also rated highly (I was rather surprised given his position, relatively small size and low production), but was not drafted. Kids that Jordan had rated after him are already in the OHL and doing well. In 4 years perhaps he will on an overall average do better, but its not a great start. That's why I asked him about his 2007 draft and if he's done a critical analysis on previous rankings.
So as a guy who loves process and making things better, my first question if I was the business owner, would be how can we improve. Is it that Jordan simply needs more time to learn and grow, probably if its only his second year doing it. But if Jordan tells me that he doesn't go to games and OHL teams do (and scouts do), and I look at the list that doesn't look like its holding up already, then in my mind his process needs to change. Perhaps there would be an initial hit to profitability, but if going to games adds more quality to the list, then perhaps its worth it over the long term. Secondly, having him out with a jacket on and being seen buy potential customers may end up driving more business anyways, so going out may end up paying for itself in that aspect.
End of the day no one really cares I don't think, I just wonder if some tweak's to the process may make the list better, and in a round about way may help Jordan move up the hockey world. To another posters point, I don't imagine that there is a high demand in the NHL for video analysts in scouting, at least not with what he does, there's tons of guys who do in person scouting and that seems to be the apitite for NHL teams, probably due to accuracy. Most video of them from what I see are more mathematical and more driven by the ability to build modeling. Instat, which we had access to last year via our U16 team, has even made them a bit less needed.
