Small business Q&A: Richard Barrett and Ross O’Dwyer from punditarena

Kehlan talks with Richard Barrett and Ross O’Dwyer from punditarena.com. They are part of the Ignite programme at UCC and are looking to be the go-to place in Ireland for insightful and quality sports writing.

What is PunditArena?

(Richard) PunditArena is designed to embrace top-quality sports writing, regardless of who it comes from. We vet people who want to become writers with us, and after careful consideration, we determine if they can be a writer.

But it’s not based on your profession; if you’re passionate about a subject and articulate, you can be part of the punditarena.com group of writers.

What’s more, we pay people for their content. Because we know that if you want the best quality writing, you have to be prepared to get the best, and that means payment. Plus, as Ross will explain, it also suits our model to do that.

What is the model you are using to commercialise this?

(Ross) The commercial side of this is something we wanted to introduce from the very beginning.

Advertising is obviously one of our revenue-generation strategies. However, we are developing ways in which specific advertisers can target the pages that they read — rather than a general advertising spectrum across the website. We have also developed relationships with newspapers and other websites which allow us to sell on top stories to them as well. That gives us great scope in Ireland and the UK, but also globally.

What do you look for in a potential writer?

(Richard) Well, firstly they have to be articulate. Then, if they go onto punditarena.com and go to the ‘become a writer’ section, they can submit it to me. I will then look over it to check its overall quality and standard. If it passes that test, it goes on to a group of sub-editors who will pull it apart and look at its individual qualities.

If they approve, then I contact the writer and welcome them to punditarena.com. They will [then] be required to write two quality pieces a week. So it’s an intense process, but one which is necessary in order to ensure the standards of the site are maintained.

Tell us about the growth you’ve had. Right now, you are at 60,000 visitors per month?

(Ross) That’s right. Well, this month we’re hoping to hit 100,000 visitors. For us, to watch this go from three or four people in November to more than 100,000 in such a short space of time is really great.

That has been testament to a lot of hard work and the top writing we have. Because of those, we expect bigger growth.

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