For the past year I've been running a content survey (see right) to get reader feedback on favorite subjects as well as your perspective on the most promising industry sector within defense. For the respondents that were not spamming the survey (!), the answers were very helpful and thoughtful. Here is a look at some key results:
People overwhelmingly prefer the niche content around defense industry venture capital and private equity. This makes sense, considering the surge in traffic whenever there is news or an update about a defense private equity firm or venture capital program. Still some interest in general M&A and surprisingly less so for defense technology (an area where admittedly there are better alternatives, many I have linked to).
Private Equity / Buyouts 38%
Venture Capital 29%
Corporate M&A 10%
Defense Technology 10%
So from this I will step up the focus on insider PE/VC coverage, especially Player Profiles -- but I will still keep up the other areas and maybe de-emphasize the general industry news (which readers probably already know).
Next up was a more diverse and robust reponse to the question of what sector you thought was most interesting and promising for the future. 62% responded around 4 top choices.
tie UAV / Cybersecurity 17%
tie Soldier Tech / IT Services 14%
I'm glad to see Soldier or Army technology ranking high, as that has been a particular focus area this year, with a range of interesting programs and business potential with relevant commercial applications. I'll continue, though, to keep technology coverage broad since the responses were so spread and no single area really dominating. I can probably do more to cover UAV and Cybersecurity.
One final bit of analysis I find interesting: I started this site a few years ago based on a business school project, but essentially from scratch. A one-man show with no advertising or PPC, Defense Ventures has been a simple collection of ongoing content and commentary. Looking at some basic search results today, I notice Defense Ventures has achieved many Top-10 results rankings for relevant keywords that had limited coverage just 2-3 years ago. Here are a few:
"defense industry venture capital": Google result #1, 2, and 4
"defense private equity": #3 Google result (ahead of Carlyle Group)
"veritas capital": #2 (behind the firm itself)
"defense technology" and "army technology": two results in Top-10 (ok, #9 & 10)
Pretty neat. Thanks for reading and look forward to more.