How this site got started
Dear Reader,
When I formed my web-designing business, Web Nation, Inc. in 1995, there was absolutely no information on what made a web site successful. We figured we should learn, and fast, how to make our customers' sites successful if we were ourselves to be successful.
Credit Info Center started as an experiment to find out what worked to bring traffic to a site. After some trial and error, we decided that content was the key, and devoted the rest of our time and budget to this aspect. It worked, because we got lots of traffic even though the original site looked pretty bad graphics- and layout-wise. We hope we've come a long way and made the information much more presentable since then. The original site was 9 pages and just grew by leaps and bounds to over 100 pages. It's been fun! We just became addicted to answering your mail and reading up on the world of credit, geeks that we are. The information presented here comes from the sum total of our research, our readers, articles in the news media, and my own extensive experience in the mortgage industry. Here's the story in a nutshell.
A long time ago in a world without the internet far, far, away.....
There lived in a ugly gray cubicle me, a mechanical engineer who thoroughly hated her job and found herself trained to do nothing else. One boring day, my manager informed me that our company was understaffed in the IS department. Surprise! I was asked: could I write an analysis program for a bearing design? My manager waived off the fact that I didn't know how to program. 'Oh and by the way, we need it done in a month', he added. Well I learned to program in C in less than one month, and actually had something working by the deadline. To my utter surprise and amazement, I loved it. I guess I shouldn't have been so amazed: I'm a Trekkie, prefer email to the phone and have lots of techno gadgets. Anyway, at the time, I never considered my new tasks a career switch; I worked at least half time with the typical boring mechanical engineering tasks (involving calculators, reports and useless meetings). Software just seemed like a fun new way to do engineering. After about 8 years of this nightmare, and after becoming disillusioned with the world of government contracting (I was laid off), I wanted to try something new. I left all of engineering, including software, behind. Or so I thought.
From Software to Finance:
During my period of unemployment, I went to refinance my house, and along with a loan application, I filled out a job application: the mortgage company to which I applied persuaded me to become a loan officer. I figured, why not? I learn fast, I like people. I forgot that the guy recruiting me was a salesman, and the reality of what he promised was a trifle less rosy. The pay, as promised, is good, but it's a 24-hour-a-day assignment if you want the big bucks. And as a side bonus, everyone in the business is stressed out. You know the old Hierarchy of Needs pyramid which breaks up into layers, in order of importance, what people need the most? Well food and shelter are at the bottom of the pyramid, and in the mortgage business you're messin' with that bottom layer. The sanest people go berserk when it comes time to buy a house. I've learned to calmly look an angry, screeching behemoth in the eye and say sympathetically, "I would feel the same way you do. You're right, this situation isn't fair. Let's do something about it. I'm on your side." Sometimes it would work. The other times, you just leave. Quickly.
During day-to-day operations I learned about credit constantly. I specialized in working with people who were mostly "B", "C", and "D" credit (less than perfect to purely awful credit). I learned to fix people's credit not only because I'm a nice person and I hate to see nice people get screwed, but for financial motivation: if a loan didn't close due to credit, I didn't get paid.
Put It All Together...
Anyway, after all the fun I had doing loans, I decided to really punish myself and go back into software. Actually I'm just kidding, I love programming, and just about the time I got back in, the Internet explosion happened. Perfect. Web Nation opened up its first web site, a mortgage/real estate site subscription-viewing site. This site combined my two strengths: credit and software. We paid good money to get it looking as bleeding-edge as possible: lots of graphics, flashing signs, all the things that are now verboten in web page design. We were so proud, it was so impressive! However, initial traffic was abysmal. We got our heads together. Pretty didn't cut it. What could drive up the traffic?
I was then, and still am now, constantly amazed at how little people understand credit, something that has such a profound effect on their lives. Not only that, but very little information was available to the general public. To increase traffic, I thought, why not publish what I knew about credit as an added "bonus"? So one day I stayed up all night and banged out the first pages of what was to become Credit Info Center. They were admittedly amaturish-looking and plain. But they brought in the traffic. The mortgage site is long gone, our pay-for-view customers never did arrive in large numbers. The credit site? We never actively marketed this site, yet we had advertisers approach us about placing ads. To date, I have answered over 5000 emails regarding letters about credit, and have spent 6 years researching the topic. The moral of the story? Content, Content.
Hope you enjoyed this little tale,
Kristy Welsh
President and CEO
Web Nation, Inc.
7904 E. Chaparral Rd
Suite 110-604
Scottsdale, AZ 85250
P.S. I know the Internet's been around since 1969, I just took a little creative license with the wording.
For all of our site disclaimers, go here.
Document last modified Monday, 02-Feb-2004 12:29:16 EST
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