Hey group,
I'm thinking of creating a accounting/finance career website that focuses heavily on advancing the careers of accounting and finance professionals through things like interviews, chats, and blogs of professionals who have been there before along with daily articles. The main focus will be building a community that helps each other while providing career progression assistance, education assistance, and even some lifestyle things (best place to live in Chicago, best laptop/smartphone).
Since many of the people in this group would be the target market I'm wondering if you all would be interested in a site like this.
Absolutely would be interested. I've said to myself a few times, the only problem with WSO (besides turning me into a major cynic) is that there isn't enough accounting/CF stuff. If we somehow got a community like WSO going it would be awesome.
The only thing that I see being a blockade (and I'm generalizing here) is that its possible the reason WSO is successful is because the type of person it attracts is the type that would seek out a site like it. Accounting may not attract the same type of crowd, even though some of us are just as informed about our careers as future IB guys.
Your last point is my biggest concern. However looking around at sites such as WSO and goingconcern I think the market is there. I think a site like WSO clearly isn't accounting/CF specific and goingconcern isn't helpful with career advice very much. I also thing GC is incredibly negative and focuses on how much public accounting suck rather than how they can help others get where they want to be.
There are many many more CPA's and accounting students at all schools then there are guys trying to get into IB so I think the market is there if the content is useful.
There are a number of other sites that serve a similar space - Big4.com, another71.com, cpanet.com, etc. Regardless, I agree with your assessment that there is room for a WSO-style community forum website, and I have being using this group as a gauge of interest for such a site. I've talked with Patrick about the possibility of a cpaOasis.com, and I will let you guys know where that goes. The major obstacles are 1) the relatively high startup costs with very low potential revenue over the first few years and 2) the need for a dedicated community manager who has the industry experience and who can front the effort to build the site without getting any return for several years (which I am considering).
Again, I'll let you guys know as this progresses. Thanks for your interest!
Hi,
I think that you may want to look at an "M&I/management consulted" type of site for accountants versus another community forum. There is a need for a centralized community because as 808 mentioned, there are a ton of scattered sites and it's hard to get good advice without having one large site, but I think there's also a market for creating something that has interviews with people who worked in audit that describe what their experiences were, what the exits were, how they overcame being "pigeon-holed" as an accountant, what they did to get into a top MBA (If applicable), etc. I think that would be very useful in case a forum as robust as WSO doesn't get started up.
There's a whole lot of opinions about CPAs and what they can or can't do and it's very hard to distinguish between what's actually true and what is purely a result of WSO/Ivy League kid snobbery on this website. For example, something as simple as figuring out how possible moving into corp dev is after doing audit, I'll get 7 people saying that I will only be qualified for internal audit, compliance, financial reporting, or controllership roles while another 2 posters will say that it is a possibility with networking/luck because a CPA is valued. Now whom do I believe? I think getting real life people interviewed would be very useful and it'd be less scatterbrained if it's in an interview/M&I format than a gigantic, "ask me anything" type of thread that would be present here.
If you want help starting a website like that, I'd definitely be interested in helping out if I can in anyway to get it set up. Not every can make it into IB/Consulting (hell not all of us even care about PE/HFs and want to stay in the corporate side) and I think having a good website that provides insight on what the rest of us who "only" make it into the B4 or F500 companies can do, would be very valuable, especially if it's in a location separate from all the college students who fetishize the IB=>PE=>m7=> retire at 40 path on here.
Good luck and let us know how it goes!
Thanks for all of your responses.
My plan is to make something along the lines of a M&I and WSO hybrid for accounting with a heavy emphasis on interaction with professionals who have done what many of us want to do. There certainly would be a forum element and I do see that as an important aspect but the sort of centralized content from real people that have been through exactly what we are trying to go through is what I want to help people get. I've acquired one domain and am working on a site already so I'm hoping I can have something running by this fall.
I'll certainly keep everyone updated and be in touch with anyone who wants to help out because something like this will take some pretty serious contact lists.
Good luck! Maybe your site and a future cpaOasis can find some synergies.
Thank you and absolutely we will have to talk in the future.
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