First year at Substack

This is an update to “first month at Substack“. How many people read this blog, how much do I earn from it and what can you expect in 2021? Let’s have a look.

Visitors to blog

I implemented Google Analytics at end of December and here are the stats for last 15 days:

• Users: 5163

• Pageviews: 17 114

So I can expect about 10 000 users and 35 000 pageviews per month:

Top 10 countries:

And how do people get here?

Newsletter subscribers

1410 people have subscribed to receive new posts to email:

And 27 people have subscribed to paid posts:

Which translates to about $2k per year - not much, but can almost cover my 2k EUR investment in Mintos crowdfunding campaign:

Note that I’ve changed the subscription price to €9.99 per month or €99.99 per year. Previously the default settings were $7 per month or $70 per year.

Top posts

I’ve written ~70 blog posts and focus in 2020 was mostly on these topics:

• P2P bloggers that lose money

• P2P platform ratings

• 15+ questionable P2P platforms

• Mintos: owners, ratings, coflicts of interest, loan originators

• Crowdestor: buyback, statistics, crowdlendio

• IBAN Wallet scam

And I’ve done some experiments:

• Getting a loan to invest in loans? (bad idea)

• Can I beat S&P 500 or Warren Buffett? (yes, I can)

Telegram group

The Telegram group “High-risk investments” has grown to 994 members. Thanks to everyone who participate in discussions, and have shared valuable info and of course - to group admins: Dmitrijs, Thaek, Hugo, Julien, J P.

Mentions elsewhere

I’ve been interviewed or mentioned by journalists from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Netherlands. Some of the content is available online:

• Apr 18, 2020: rus.lsm.lv: Mintos, Twino и другие: как Covid-19 ударил по «финтеху» и инвесторам

• Apr 18, 2020: lsm.lv: «Mintos», «Twino» un citi: kā Covid-19 devis triecienu «fintech» un investoriem

• Jun 15, 2020: vz.lt: Tarpusavio paskolų rinkoje daugėja probleminių platformų

• Jun 17, 2020: kompromat.lv: P2P-кредитование: Латвия может оказаться в центре финансового скандала

• Oct 8, 2020: aripaev.ee: Eesti näoga Läti ühisrahastusportaal võitleb ränkade süüdistustega

And couple of bloggers/podcasters (content in Latvian):

• Apr 15, 2020: youtube.com: Riska renesanse #1 - Kristaps Mors | P2P, Crypto, Akcijas

• Dec 20, 2020: youtube.com: Kas Notiek ar Bitcoin?

Any advantages to blogging?

The downside is clear - I’ve spent lot of hours doing research and writing, and I am not really making any money from it. So why do it? There are some benefits:

1. I am forced to learn more about the topics I write about, so I am getting better at research, finance and investing myself.

2. If I make bad calls or decisions, anyone can quote me later and remind about it. So there is a public pressure to avoid dumb investments.

3. I’ve expanded my network and get to talk to much smarter and experienced people than myself.

4. I get access to other investor insights, comments and research.

Substack

Substack as a blogging platform is limited in some functionality, but I really enjoy the simplicity and have moved my domain kristapsmors.com from Wordpress to Substack, so blog address has changed from kristapsmors.substack.com to kristapsmors.com

If you consider creating a blog, I highly recommend to check out Substack - very easy to start, collect newsletter subscribers and publish posts both in a blog and as a newsletter. And no ads (like in Wordpress), no promotion of others (like in Medium) and no need to pay (Substack only takes 10% fee from paid subscriptions).

Feedback so far

I’ve received mostly positive feedback and for me personally - the best messages are those, who are sent from investors - who got out of shady investment platforms in time and avoided losing more money.

But of course not everyone enjoys my critical views, so I also had to deal with stuff like this:

• A crypto scam promoter warned about suing me

• Youtube mass down voting, Telegram bot attacks and false claims

• I got banned from Riga’s P2P Conference

• P2P scam used a lawyer to threaten me and get a post removed

If you have any feedback, I would love to hear it - feel free to write a comment or reply in email, and be as critical as possible. Maybe I can improve something in 2021.

What can you expect in 2021?

• I will continue to write about 1-2 posts per week about the same investing topics: P2P platforms, stocks, crypto. ~50% will be available to everyone and ~50% to paid subscribers.

• In February I plan to launch a website/database of P2P platforms with some additional features.

• In March or so I plan to launch a new version of P2P platform ratings.

Key takeaways

1. As I am not promoting scams and writing mostly critical reviews, blogging is not a very profitable hobby.

2. Doing research and writing requires lot of time, but there are some benefits.

3. Expect some new stuff in 2021 and if you enjoy the content, consider subscribing.

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P.S. Join “High-risk investments“ Telegram group for an informal discussion.