It’s Our 1-Year Birthday

Just one long year ago today we launched The Sweet Setup. Our aim was to be the place you go when you (or your friends) want the best app for a certain category. That is still our aim.

Over the past year, we’ve done our best to write some of the best app reviews you can find, share interesting and fun interviews with folks about the computer gear they use, and write helpful tips to help you get the most out of the apps you use.

When we launched, I was blown away by the response. We served over 150,000 pageviews in just the first 24 hours. And a year later, the site is still doing well. Last month (October) was our biggest traffic month to date, with 307,400 page views (in no small thanks to us posting one of the most-requested app categories: GTD).

Launching a new website is fun. On launch day it’s incredibly encouraging and exciting to see the buzz and conversation happen around the new. And it’s satisfying to finally show the world what you’ve been working on. But once that initial adrenaline rush is over, you’re left with a site that needs consistent updates and maintenance. It’s in the months (and years) following that both you and your readers find out what the site is truly like.

I’d like to think that a year in, and The Sweet Setup has now found a good groove. There are 5 of us behind the scenes: Stephen Hackett, Jeff Abbott, Chris Gonzales, and Bradley Chambers, and we’ve found an editorial pace that works for us: one setup interview and a quick tip per week, and two app reviews per month.

And the readership at The Sweet Setup is world class. Over 20-percent of our site visitors click through to the App Store to buy an app we recommend. And we get a lot of dialog on Twitter whenever we post a new app review. Sometimes, that’s in the form of folks giving constructive criticizm about an area of the review where we need to add more information or do more research. And we love that — the community of readers is helping us make the site better.

All this to say, we think The Sweet Setup is one of the best websites on the Internet. It’s thoughtful, personal, and not too busy. We love working on it, and I hope we can continue to do great work.

And thank you, dear reader, for reading and for making our first year a success. High fives for everyone.