website based business start-up question?
Posted by Internet King | Posted in Internet Marketing Q&A | Posted on 31-12-2011-05-2008
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Question by Andrew S: website based business start-up question?
What do you do when you want nothing more than to move forward with a concept, when you’d be willing to work on it night and day if you possessed the skill, but your stuck at a road block because you know that even though you are trying to learn the skill required to move forward, the skill needed takes years to perfect.
I have a concept put together for a website that, if built with quality, would have the potential to attract masses equal to eBay. While never directly competing with any of the following, it would pull business from: Auction sites (eBay, amazon, craigslist, etc), media distribution (netflix, redbox, retail/online media and game sales), and any other company that deals with buying, selling, or renting merchandise.
I have already purchased a domain and literally created the concept on paper. Its not some half of a page concept either, its a page by page fully laid out representation of what you would see online if it was functional.
So now the part where I look for some expert advice on how i should proceed. The following is what I had in mind but I don’t know what the smartest move would be.
- I am a military vet and computer science major to be. I have just started taking my programming related classes but they move at a pace that is way to slow for me to learn everything I need to know to make this concept happen myself. I have been running though video tutorials of programming languages I will be learning but the workload is just to great so I can only learn bits here and there. I have met other students in farther along classes that know a lot more than I but after some time around them, i have made a judgement call that not even they posses the full skill needed to make this concept a success. If i wait until I transfer to UCLA, I know i will meet more qualified people that I can potentially partner up with to make this concept happen, but that is still just short of 2 years away.
- Another road i could and might potentially go down is introducing the concept to my computer science professor. He is 100% dedicated to seeing his students succeed. He also worked for the military like I and has started up many corporations in his time. His knowledge surprises me everyday that i am in class. I think he said that he just learned a new programming language over the weekend that puts him at 19 under his belt. he said that the more languages you learn, the easier they are to learn. I have already introduced my brick wall problem to him in the past via an email before I started the class and he said that we could discuss it further once i started the class and he might be able to get me going in the right direction. Since I started the class, I have not approached him yet to talk about it, I don’t know if its because I don’t want to think the concept will get into the wrong hands and be stolen from me or just because I don’t know if his response will get me and further or not. He would never steal the concept and at this point even if it got stolen, i don’t think i would care because I could tell myself I know what not to do next time.
- Another potential avenue I could take is to just start shelling out cash, which i don’t have much of. I would probably start with a lawyer, don’t know what kind, and then move on to a development company if i could afford it. I’ve tried freelancer sites for other projects and things did not turn out as i hoped. I haven’t went down this path because I don’t know where to spend the limited money that I do have which will yield me the best results and chance at success.
- The last potential idea that i have come up with, and the one I would like to go down, is to find a very skilled programmer, possibly somewhere around my age bracket, that shares the same passion for success that i do. Someone that prefers to do the hardcore programming while I develop the graphical, marketing and strategy end of things. I don’t mind having a partner taking a share of the profits, as long as he is not on the controlling end of being able to push me out of the loop and take my concept.
-My teacher also mentioned something about angel investors, I don’t know exactly how that type of thing works but if it involved me taking out a loan, I would not do that unless I was sure as to where the money needed to be spent. If its just someone giving me money for a start-up for a part of the profits, I don’t know that I would take it either for the same reason. Now if its something more of a partnership where we both collaborate and work out a plan of action to achieve success as a team, that’s the thing i am looking for. Sort of a mentor and investor at the same time.
So now its time to let your opinions flow on what you think the best plan of action would be. Also are there any good sites or places to meet potential partners who have the skill but not the creative mind so to speak. I in the Los Angeles area
I wanted to add one other thing…. I’m sure that I will get people telling me that a good idea is hard to come by or try and tell me things that will discourage me but I would rather only hear things from do-ers and people with potentially helpful solutions. I have already convinced myself that I have developed a very creative mind. Back in 2007-2008, I wanted to put together a solution that would allow Microsoft to compete with Apples rise in success. I developed a professional 150+ page proposal to Microsoft. Along with some very key elements and new products, it explained that Microsoft needed to adopt the motto of an “ecosystem” for their products instead of all of their products competing by themselves. It took me a few months to successfully get it in the hands of Mr. Ballmer, but I eventually did. Although I never received a response from Mr. Ballmer or Microsoft, it seems that what was proposed in that book is starting to show. Microsoft has started integrating their three scr
Best answer:
Answer by Todd
You could certainly talk to your professor for he simple purpose of ‘scratching the surface’ of finding out what direction he thinks you might should go….depending on the professor, the amount of information/advice he would give you may be great or perhaps minimal(some professors will give very little advice, while in the ‘professor’ role- fear of liability for ‘work’ not related to the teaching of the subject).
You could certainly search on-line(by googling), for someone looking for someone to partner with an individual who has an invention idea(like yourself). In that case however, an attorney would certainly be wise……if you wanted to get an inexpensive (small business)attorney who could assist you, you might want to look at Prepaid Legal’s ‘Small Business’ Plan- the attorneys are good and there are a lot of separate informative tools available through the membership. In case you would like to look at the membership information, you can get it from this site: www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/todd93
From the site you can look at the ‘business’ plan(s).
Hopefully this information is a little helpful
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