What a difference a week makes!

I'd like to thank each of you for being so supportive and active during PWO's first week. In the first seven days the site was up and running, we posted a staggering twenty-two match reviews, two features articles, a podcast, and more! I thought I'd use today's update to talk about lessons learned and where we go from here.

My real-life background is in content management and it's something I've done a decent amount of, but what I'm aiming to do here is much, much bigger in scope and I'm working entirely within a system I'm creating myself, so it's a new world. At a certain point in the week, I realized that I was spending about 90% of my time on website tweaks, which wasn't leaving me with very much time to do what I should be doing with most of my time, which is to develop and deliver great wrestling content. After looking into it a little more, I realized the insanity of my goal to manually build an all-things-wrestling database while juggling 35 articles per week, each 500-750 words or so, and record a daily podcast, which was my initial ambition. It was a lot of work and I was never blind about that, but when I realized just how much I could automate and restructured a lot of old articles to accommodate that, and that working 18-hour days just to work on site design wasn't quite what I had in mind when I launched this, just shifting those gears alone took three days of my time. A lot of the big features I wanted to add to the site won't be here immediately, but most of them will be here relatively soon, and they'll be better than they would have been.

The big takeaways are that unexpected discoveries, challenges, and ideas will happen again and also that I can't work myself to the bone constantly when something can be automated. I've come up with a new core content schedule that is still ambitious, but also realistic and gives me some flexibility:

• 20 match reviews from this week in history, to be posted throughout the week
• Three weekly podcasts
• Regular Editor's Notes check-ins

This also gives me the time and flexibility I need to work on some of the exciting developments on their way to fruition, such as:

• PWO30, our new monthly digital magazine. Each month, PWO30 will provide a fresh look at everything in wrestling 30 years ago this month. The first issue will be available on Monday, July 23, and will be FREE for download!
• Wrestler, year, promotion, title, and media (e.g., podcasts, books and magazines, shoot interviews, etc) profile pages. Find the ultimate one-stop shop for wrestlers (and the other stuff) inclusive of all nationalities, genders, styles, and eras, and of people at all levels of pro wrestling stardom. These pages will also include PWO-specific stores for each wrestling entity with thoughtfully-curated listings to buy wrestling items from PWO's affiliates (Amazon, Redbubble, Spreadshirt, Highspots, eBay, WWEShop, and others).
• PWO on Patreon. My goal is for PWO to have a tier system available on Patreon by August 1 with some really cool and unique offerings included. I'll keep you all posted of that progress here. While 8/1 is my goal, I will not launch on Patreon until I am confident that each tier is offering something of real value.
• Feature articles. Look for the first installment of Wrestling In Sevens, a regular feature that spotlights individual wrestling fans and their lifelong journeys with pro wrestling, early this week. I'm really excited about this offering and think you'll love it!
• A more interactive platform that's more fully integrated with the PWO forums. The forums are still here, but I'm exploring ways to more fully integrate that sense of community with the site itself. This is a long-term work in progress.

Thanks again to those of you who have been here all week. You have truly made this a worthwhile endeavor and I'm endlessly grateful. 

Onward we go!
Charles
Editor, ProWrestlingOnly.com