My idea is...

OfficerCadet.com is the web’s top destination for informal and friendly Merchant Navy careers discussion and information.

When I first considered a career at sea in 2010, there was very little information available online apart from official sources. It was very difficult to get an insider view of the industry. When I was offered an interview, I decided to set up OfficerCadet.com on a whim, using freely available software. My only expenses were web hosting and the domain name.

With some crafty social media promotion and the support of a fantastic team of volunteers, the site took off and has been growing ever since. In fact, our popularity has had its downsides, with pretty much all of our advertising revenue now going towards server costs, which leaves us with very little to spend on improvements to the site.

Despite this, I’ve dug deep and we now have a fancy new content management system, which has allowed us to offer more than just the forums. Our further development depends on either a sizeable upturn in our advertising revenue or external funds.

If we get enough votes, we’d be looking at using the money to contribute to:

- Promotional material to widen our userbase. We’d like to reach out to more than just prospective Merchant Navy cadets, and get more qualified, serving officers on board. Posters, flyers, online advertising etc.
- Improvements to our design and software to suit our purposes.
- Equipment and software to adequately manage the site (running a popular website from a steam powered laptop is very difficult!)

By expanding our userbase, we should hopefully see a rise in advertising revenue which will fund our future running costs!