When Do Draft Software Sales Peak?
March 6, 2023
Draft season probably peaks in late March. But will DraftKick sales peak before that?
So far, I've had steady sales growth. Volume is still pretty low and the daily numbers are volatile, but the weekly numbers are clearer:
| Week Starting | Sales |
|---|---|
| Dec 18 | 2 |
| Jan 8 | 1 |
| Jan 15 | 1 |
| Jan 22 | 7 |
| Jan 29 | 3 |
| Feb 5 | 6 |
| Feb 12 | 5 |
| Feb 19 | 15 |
| Feb 26 | 17 |
| Mar 5 | 8* |
If sales peak in late March, I could maybe do 20, 24, 28, and 10 sales over the next four weeks, taking the total to 139. In that scenario, I'd be set to double my sales from the current figure (just under $2,000) to a little over $4,000 total.
My guess is that that is a bit too rosy. Drafts may peak in late March, but I think people's preparations will peak a little earlier. So maybe the high-water mark is this week, and I finish with 20, 15, 10, 5. That would be 107 sales, good for over $3,200 total.
Anyway, I think that's a pretty good demarcation for expectations. Unless something surprising happens, I think I can easily top 100 sales ($3,000). But maybe I could get as high as $4,000.
Features
Some more nice features came out in these past couple of weeks:
- Player Notes - Add custom notes to any player
- Custom Replacement Levels - You can now set your own replacement levels for each position, for example, lowering catcher values in two-catcher leagues
- Category Weights - Increase or decrease the value of any category. Useful for bumping up steals or saves, especially.
- Live SGP for Points Leagues - I designed the Live SGP for roto, where category balance is important. The points version is simpler, because it's only considering positional value. It's a useful tool for setting the hitting/pitching split, too.
Moving Open Projections
I have had the Open Projections hosted separately from Projectile, which has caused issues trying to manage the mental bandwidth of keeping both sites running. The Open Projections' host also has limited storage (1 GB), and I'm set to hit that limit with the stats from the 2023 season. So I've been thinking I should consolidate the two and move the Open Projections alongside Projectile.
I worked on that this past week, hitting a snag when I kept running out of memory doing the daily projection build for Open Projections! (Despite having limited storage space, apparently that first host was more generous with RAM...) I had to up my hosting from $5 to $20/month, which more than devoured the $5 I saved by cancelling the original Open Projections host.
I'll pay the $20/month in the short-term. But it means that Projectile still isn't turning a profit. Not sure what my next step is... Find a better host? Optimize the projection step somehow? Or kill it off at the end of the season?
Sales
Since the last update:
- Projectile: 4 sales ($49.80)
- DraftKick: 25 sales ($748.75)
Season total:
- Projectile: 16 sales ($244.05)
- DraftKick: 65 sales ($1946.75)