Name of your website?AutoMiddleEast.com
Your name?
Pankaj Dev
Your Location (city, etc)
Dubai
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Reviews of New cars in the Middle East. The site is a great information source for any new car buyer in the region.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I was looking at buying a car and could not get my hands on any reasonably good information source for new cars in Dubai, UAE. One thing lead to another & I ended up launching a car site.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
It was in 2004 that the first site went up. At the time, it was called AutoEmirates.com because that is where I lived and started this project from. It was in 2006 that we re-named it to AutoMiddleEast.com targeting it to the 6 GCC countries - UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait & Oman.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Based on the target market.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
Contents. We regularly review new cars in this region and write reports about them. These reports are written by qualified and experienced people. In addition to the review, we have a news section that gets updated daily, and a bunch of other sections as well that, put together, are a great information source for any car lover/buyer/owner.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Probably to sell it to a worthy buyer who can pay well, and more importantly take the site to a higher orbit.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Well, at the moment - its more investment and less returns.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Put more money on the technology side - there are things and features that can make the user experience more interesting. And, in people that drive the site forward. We want to be able to start selling cars through the site.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
With the present resources - nope.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Development and manpower costs.
What has been your biggest challenge?
To be able to spend my time on the site.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Word of mouth and references.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
The site's reputation are more than I initial thought it would be. We are somewhat a role model for many other sites in the region.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
Its been about 5 years now. Popularity or no - I will keep it going. I enjoy what I do, love cars and that's important to me.
If I was a site - what would I be?
AutoMiddleEast.com :)
What is your website address?
AutoMiddleEast.com
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