Replies to Feedback -Thank you!
My favourite thing about RetireJapan is a selfish one. It is an incredibly effective place to get feedback and refine my thinking.
After last week’s post, I got a lot of very constructive feedback, comments, and advice. In this post I will go through some of it and add my reactions.
Your input
Thanks to everyone who commented, gave suggestions, or just said nice things.
Here are some of the suggestions:
- Interview more people
- Just do things I enjoy and stop doing anything else: retire
- Do more outreach on LinkedIn
- Do a podcast
- Just keep doing what I’m doing, it is appreciated
- Focus on core topics only
- Collaborate with others
- Seek more exposure by advocating for foreign residents
- Move everything to Substack
- Stop doing everything and start a podcast
- Change the name of the site
- Develop a service that will allow me to charge a retainer
They were all incredibly helpful because they helped me think about the situation from various angles, prompting new insights and forcing me to confront issues.
Many people also got in touch to say nice things. Thank you.
I am feeling much more positive now and I think I know what the problem is, so I also think I know how to fix it.
The problem and how to fix it
The problem is stagnation.
The reason I don’t feel like RetireJapan has done much for the last couple of years is because it hasn’t. We have been iterating, not evolving.
Doing the same things consistently is really important, but we’re not going to get different results that way.
The pain and dissatisfaction I have been feeling is just life’s way to telling me to make some changes.
I am pretty sure the way to fix things is to learn some new skills and try some new things.
The new plan
Learning and growth is the way to go. I think that looks like three things:
- Get some new qualifications (go back to the FP exams, maybe take some courses)
- Learn some new skills (go deeper on marketing, copywriting, editing)
- Consume more content in Japanese: articles, videos, news, to get new information and improve my language skills
There are also some tactics I want to pursue:
- write more effective content (blog posts, social media)
- be more consistent uploading to YouTube
- publish the new podcast consistently
- find people to interview
- collaborate with others
- find better homes for our mailing lists and products
I will not:
move to Substack(have reconsidered this and will cross post to Substack on a trial basis)- change the name of the site
- become a consultant or something similar
- stop doing things we do now
So I am feeling pretty good about the site now, looking forward to seeing what 2025 has in store for RetireJapan, and excited about the future.
Thanks for all the support, encouragement, suggestions, and advice. It means the world to me.
Ben — Thank you for sharing your candid reactions to all the feedback you have collected. It sounds like you have taken a lot of that good advice to heart. I look forward to the “new and improved” you and the site.
Just a point of clarification regarding Substack, if you were to migrate all content to this rapidly growing platform, you would still have control of the site and email list. One of the hallmarks of Substack is that the content belongs to the authors. While the editing features are more limited compared to WordPress, they are perfectly adequate for what you would need. You may want to reconsider this decision, as the Substack network is growing by leaps and bounds. It would allow you to reach a much larger audience. It also has a built-in, optional mechanism for adding a paywall to certain content or simply collecting donations. As you know, I have had a very positive experience with Substack so far. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me.
In any case, I am sure you will improve what is already a great information resource.
Regards,
Mark