Earlier quoted context omitted.
What sort of traffic numbers do you get, and how do they discover you? This is the sort of thing that I believe can be easily duplicated. Not copied, but translated to different ideas. Generating traffic can be difficult, so the subject, plus actually useful content, is important.
In the last 30 days the site received 27,000 page views and 7,000 sessions. Organic search made up 80% of traffic. The concept of a curated list for XYZ can be translated for other ideas, sure. Getting traffic was part luck for me. At the time it was a low competition keyword but now there are a lot of similar sites up.
Good info. Thanks. I've had similar experiences where, with some luck, I've hit upon a keyword/subject ripe for the picking or perhaps just too small or specific to have generated much competition up to that point. It's fun when you find something like that! The hard part is know when you've found it (or not).