My Dilemma, and how to overcome it?

leadsupplier

leadsupplier

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Aug 11, 2009
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I'm looking for some professional, real advice here, and not some dumbass responses like "Fuck that, get paid Millions or die" type shit.

So have I have an idea/very basic prototype built for a web app which i have received nothing but praise for from every single person i have talked to about it. There is no doubt in my mind that is is useful and will provide value for hundreds of thousands of people (i don't want to say thousands). It's not the next Facebook, or Instagram, or Youtube, just a basic idea that is extremely useful if done right, and the potential to be used by lots and lots of people.

My dillemma is that it's going to cost me a decent chunk of $$ to get it off the ground and at a point where i'm satisfied with it. The issue is that it's not built directly to make money. It's not a product people have to purchase or subscribe to. I have ideas on how to monetize it, basically a "Freemium" model, but the meat and potatoes of the app is that it is Free to use for anyone in the world.

This simple fact is what is keeping me hesitant about investing heavily in it. Some people will probably mention how there are huge websites like twitter or instagr.am that don't make any money but are still successful. Well i don't ever see this getting that big, i just envision it being a "household name" with a few premium features and ads to generate revenue. The millionaire fastlane also keeps chiming in my head about removing selfishness and affecting millions of people to make millions of dollars.

So what would you do in my situation? Am i being retarded for even considering to not pursue something that seems to show so much potential at such an early stage just because i don't have a rock solid guarantee that it will be a huge earner?

discuss, i need to waste some time at work today :)
 


If you feel the idea is good enough then why not bring on some money to reduce the risk to you. As long as it's not soooo much you should be able to raise it quite easily with a very good idea. As long as you have a clean history (credit, legal etc).
 
nickster said:
If you feel the idea is good enough then why not bring on some money to reduce the risk to you. As long as it's not soooo much you should be able to raise it quite easily with a very good idea. As long as you have a clean history (credit, legal etc).
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this is the direction i'm leaning towards. I think $5-10k should deliver a pretty nice product, but i just don't want to risk my own money. i'm just not sure how to go about securing the funds. I was thinking of fully fleshing out the project idea and requirements in a powerpoint and then throwing it up on Kickstartr - thats about the best idea i've had.

The other thing i'm a novice about is just what type of projects get funding. I get intimidated when i see these really large, robust, super innovative sites getting funding and think that my site has to be similar. Right now it's mission is pretty simple, and it's made to achieve only one purpose, i guess that is another dilemma i'm having ... "is my site even worthy enough" to get funding.
 
You need to have some "skin in the game". I wouldn't invest in your company at this stage unless you would be seriously financial committed (as well as time)
 
you need to look for investors, but before you can go there you got to have at least one good idea of minimization (remember, for example, that having 50k members for example is worth something).

If you do not have one strong and solid method of making money out of this, try and create 3-4 minimization channels for the investors to choose from.

Founders do not have to put up all the money, and they usually go out looking for investors, the financial risk does not have to fall on your shoulders. I would look for strategic partners, who are already, in some way, involved in your idea market.
 
If you believe it will do well, then make it happen. You don't have to do it overnight. Build it slow, take a $1K a month for 10 months and you have it. You don't owe anyone money and you don't have to worry about outing your idea to to the world before it's ready.

There are lots of ways to monetize, the internet is about volumes of people (critical mass). Get volumes of people then worry about how to make money after. If you have 100,000 people using your software and you figure out a way to MAKE $1 off each person, that's $100,000. Just saying.
 
nickCR said:
If you believe it will do well, then make it happen. You don't have to do it overnight. Build it slow, take a $1K a month for 10 months and you have it. You don't owe anyone money and you don't have to worry about outing your idea to to the world before it's ready.

There are lots of ways to monetize, the internet is about volumes of people (critical mass). Get volumes of people then worry about how to make money after. If you have 100,000 people using your software and you figure out a way to MAKE $1 off each person, that's $100,000. Just saying.
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yea i think this is closest to where i'm going. I might budget $500/mo on small updates and build like that. I really have no idea how many people would use it, but it gets a lot of searches, the market has competitors that are ripping them off. My site would be a disruption with a slightly different business model. I am probably over thinking, because lately what i've been doing is figuring out the search volume i could get for a #1 spot then figuring out my potential revenue if i get a 1% CVR rate on my $5 premium upsell. It would be like $250 lol. I really think i need to stop with the predictive math.
 
Im with hehejo and nickCR.

bootstrap it - 5-10k will not kill you...especially over a longer period of time.

Frankly, the fact that you haven't already gone that route hints that you aren't passionate enough about your idea. If you don't don't believe in it and yourself, you will probably fail.

my two cents.
 
BlueSteele said:
Im with hehejo and nickCR.

bootstrap it - 5-10k will not kill you...especially over a longer period of time.

Frankly, the fact that you haven't already gone that route hints that you aren't passionate enough about your idea. If you don't don't believe in it and yourself, you will probably fail.

my two cents.
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I'm slowly becoming more passionate about it now that i've been getting a lot of positive re-enforcement. But when i had the idea i just thought "this is a cool, nice idea, but it's free so i shouldn't pursue it". I just said fuck it and hired a coder to make a rough first draft of the site, showed it to some people, continued to receive praise for it, and also opened up some doors as far as who it would be useful for. So I'm just at a stage of uncertainty, and it's all about the money right now, that's what's fucking me up.

I don't want to keep rambling though, i've gotten some good advice so far here. I think the best approach for me to take is to just budget and improve it month by month.

My main goal of this thread was to just hear if pursuing a project that is useful but not immediately financially lucrative is an ok thing to do.
 
I did this some years ago, spent about 4500, hired a dumbass and got raped.

I'm sure you already know this but please take extra care in selecting the people who build the damn thing.

I would have loved to see how it turned out.

It is definitely a unique experience.
 
Jameel said:
I did this some years ago, spent about 4500, hired a dumbass and got raped.

I'm sure you already know this but please take extra care in selecting the people who build the damn thing.
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yea i also had a bad experience on another project. although it was my fault b/c i thought it was just a cool idea and there wasn't really a need for it.

my biggest fear is spending 5K all at once and then realizing i should have built things differently. Because of that i'm gunna just spend $500/mo on updates as i slowly continue to learn more
 
5-10k sounds like peanuts. I'm not American. Incomes in my country are 2-3 times lower and I would not have any doubts, if the idea is promising.

But if you want to minimize costs - consider going offshore with some programming tasks (I do not recommend India/Pakistan etc, but consider Eastern Europe which is about $40-50/h for professional coders - I mean high quality source + meeting deadlines and so on). Send me PM with some sort of general bullets what you need - can provide you with a decent offer and a portfolio.
 
I didn't read any responses to your post, i'm just responding with my advice.

Maybe find a partner. I don't like partners but if you want to find a "cheap way out" in the short term at least you can partner up with someone and cut them in on the company without paying out of pocket. The downside is if its successful it will cost you more then just paying to have the site developed.

P.S. Im referring to a partner who is a developer.
 
AdHustler said:
I didn't read any responses to your post, i'm just responding with my advice.

Maybe find a partner. I don't like partners but if you want to find a "cheap way out" in the short term at least you can partner up with someone and cut them in on the company without paying out of pocket. The downside is if its successful it will cost you more then just paying to have the site developed.

P.S. Im referring to a partner who is a developer.
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always great to hear from you AdHustler.

I am currently seeking a partner, just not having much success. I want a partner b/c i'm not a coder and i need their guidance and skill set. Also, any major startup needs at least 2 co-founders, i know a lot of incubators require this. I'm also not really sure how to find one. I just sent a lot of PPL emails on Techcofounder.com, but no bites yet.
 
I don't normally comment here but your post has compelled me to do so as I'm in the process of developing a site that could easily turn out to be popular but not profitable. I subscribe to Seth Godin's blog and the morning after I had the idea Seth wrote this post I'm quoting below. After reading this I decided fuck it I'm doing it. I hope this helps.

"
On making a ruckus in your industry

Bring forward a new idea or technology that disrupts and demands a response
Change pricing dramatically
Redefine a service as a product (or vice versa)
Organize the disorganized, connect the disconnected
Alter the speed to market radically
Change the infrastructure, the rules or the flow of information
Give away what used to be expensive and charge for something else
Cater to the weird, bypassing the masses
Take the lead on ethics
(Or you could just wait for someone to tell you what they want you to do)"Seth's Blog: On making a ruckus in your industry
 
Besides thinking of the costs for the product you should also consider the costs to keep it running because you can't place your bet on a skyrocket kickstart. I'm not only talking about the server costs, I mean the whole maintenance as well as the paper work which starts from the first day. However, business plans are a good start to calculate what's really needed. I'm not sure where you come from but in some country's it's possible to get support (money-wise) by the country for startup's. Besides that, if you have a cost effective business plan, every bank would love to share their money with you. (Industy doens't matter)

Partnering is always good but I am sceptical towards online (unknown) business partners. I have made some very nice and some real bad experience so far, so mixed feelings about this. You said, you're not a programmer? Well, that's not a problem - Find a company, set up a contract and let them do the coding work for you.

Besides all the things said, having a running product doesn't mean to succeed. Marketing is another point but this is not the point of my post.


Khalil
 
Two words "non-disclosure agreement".

If you're really passionate about this idea and if you seriously talk to anyone about it, have them sign one first. The last thing you want to do is become the next Winklevoss brothers, even if it's on a much smaller scale.

I also think taking outside money for something in the 10k range is a bad way to go. Get it together yourself then proceed. It's not a huge investment and surely there's a way to monetize down the road. And yeah, business plan is probably in order at this point.
 
learn to code
learn to code
learn to code

Best investment you can make.

EDIT: Don't worry about telling people your idea, ideas are a dime a dozen. it's all about the execution!
 
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