HOORAH! At 18:28 today, the 2,500,000 person joined this site’s weekly tips email. That’s 1,027,000 more than at the same time 365 days ago.
It feels like it should be a special number with its own name… like a quarter of a Tenmillion. This landmark means MoneySavingExpert.com’s now at a scale similar to the big boys of the publishing world, out-reaching a good few national newspapers.
I’m very proud of the site, my MSE team, and what we’ve achieved, and huge thanks to all the contributing forumites and those who tell friends about the site.
For my fellow MoneySaving stats nerds here’s the progress chart for the weekly e-mail (it includes links to the waybackmachine, sometimes some images will be missing from the old versions of the site… to help improve that we may be a few days off).
August 2002… Home Page. I launched the site as a personal home page…. See what it looked like
22 Feb 2003… The Site’s Birth. I had the site developed into the first version of what it is today… See what it looked like
25 April 2003…. 10,000 on email list. See what it looked like
11 January 2004… 50,000 on email list. See what it looked like
30 July 2004… 100,000 on email list. See what it looked like
28 April 2005… 250,000 on email list. See what it looked like
3 March 2006… 500,000 on email list. See what it looked like
24 Feb 2007…. 1,000,000 on email list. See what it looked like
20 April 2008… 2,000,000 on email list. See what it looked like!
19 September 2008…. 2,500,000 on email list!
To turn what was a small home page into what perhaps can now be seen as an institution in just over five years is a phenomena. More importantly the size and strength means the information we can now provide is honed and updated. I thought this was an appropriate moment to give a couple of examples of what happens behind the scenes…
- Cutting edge research team.
As I seem to spend more time delivering the info, it’s crucial to have a fantastic team who know their stuff to ensure the site is still correct and on the nose. Today as I whizzed from filming an urgent ITV programme to radio 2 on the back of a motorbike, I called up MSE Dan as he’d been examining the new savings safety institutional link between Lloyds and Halifax.
It’s funny for me to think that Dan was the first outside recruit (Brendan I knew from other jobs and Andrea was a site user) back in December 2004. He replied to an ad for an office junior at the local job centre, yet when he came with a CV noting a degree in maths from Imperial uni, I hired him on the spot.
Having worked with me for a long time and with a maths brain, he’s a great example of how the team’s maturing skills and experience has changed things, with each member having a solid and trusted expertise of their own.
Alongside MSE Archna (another originally raw graduate recruit now turned into senior team member with honed skills) he leads the site editorial team, and has responsibility for ensuring all the hardcore money stuff is up to date.
- Deals are now updated every day
Every time I look at the prominent Daily Updated Vouchers, Codes and Deals block on the home page, I smile.
The site’s strength means that since June we’ve been able to afford a full time team member, MSE Deborah, to keep that area updated and it’s been a fantastic revelation to see its popularity.
For me this is a joy. To know I can turn something like that into a professional task, used by millions, and knowing it helps people to maintain a good lifestyle at low cost in these tough times.
As this shows, the growth of the site has meant it’s now a team not a one-man band job. I could write a glowing report about every element of the site and its team; each of whom shows dedication & speciality, and is deserving of praise…
… from my hard put-upon but creative techies and designers, to the dependability of and organization of the admin team and the talented editorial team each of whom is developing niches and specialities.
As I’ve said before when I started the site on my own, as a place to support my broadcast work (read about the site’s history) little could I perceive that around 6,000,000 people in the UK would access it each month and a team of people would be supporting them; let alone the fact the site would be able to support its own charity (see MSE Charity Fund)
