I have an idea, what do I need to do?

**Graven29** · June 6th, 2012, 4:37 AM

I am so new to all of this, and I even saw a thread similar to this one, maybe even a little further along than me, but didn't want to hijack it, so I am starting my own. Ok, so I am literally brand new to this. I cannot write code, I cannot even figure out where to start, but I do have an idea. It is for a website offering a service locally. I think it is a really kick ass idea, and I can't wait to get started. But how do I do that? How much money do I need? Should I find the perfect domain name? Where do I buy the domain? Do I need to hire a web designer or can I read a bunch of free stuff here and there and do it myself? Can I do this with $50? $100? $200? Once I have my website up and running, how do I build traffic? Venture out with business cards? Hire people to write articles? Write articles myself? I really am excited to get started, but I don't know what to do? How long will this take? When will I be profitable? How much time will I need to devote to get this going? Is GoDaddy really evil like they say? Sorry, but I had to ask. Sorry for the long winded question, looking forward to the responses.

**Chabrenas** · June 6th, 2012, 5:30 AM

Hi Graven29, and welcome to Experienced People. (I'm experienced in a way, but I haven't learned much - that's why I'm here and making up for lost time). Before anyone can give you useful advice, you'll need to give us an idea of what you believe you are reasonably competent at, and how much money you can afford to spend (and NO, none of us is here to sell you anything). Let me start with what I believe should be the first question:

Why do you believe your idea is good? Do you have a real idea of how many people are going to be interested in spending their money on it? Since it's a local service, you should be able to assess this fairly accurately. How many people have you asked, and what questions did you ask? You must be sure to ask how willing they would be to pay, and what they would expect to get in return. [afterthought added] Once you know what you can sell for, you'll know how much you can afford to spend creating and delivering - and the wbesite is only part of that cost.

**TheodoreK** · June 6th, 2012, 5:45 AM

I really like it when people ask a lot of questions

However, it is very hard to give any meaningful answers before you answer our own questions about yourself. Graven29, a lot of interesting questions have been raised in your intro thread here. Maybe you can help us by answering these first? This will give us a clearer picture about you.

**Slowdive** · June 6th, 2012, 6:17 AM

Hi Graven29 welcome to the forums.

Read this
Read this

Those links are not posted because I love the sound of my own voice, simply put before embarking on any venture most of us need to take a quick reality check and begin considering the real obstacles in our path. As we begin to consider these challenges we can begin to formulate a plan of action. As I do not have time to write a thesis, I am not going to go into an actual business plan. What I am instead going to suggest is the considerations that should go into a website or on-line business.

As to self building VS paying a professional, the considerations are largely about why do you need a website. If your business idea is I will come and clean your drains for $50.00, well its a good deal its a convenient service and could work. However it may not even require a website, the business model is targeted at a local audience and is limited by how far its viable to travel. So you may in such a case find that fliers, posters, word of mouth and cold calling are better investments of time than a website.

If your plan is to syndicate news to five hundred local internet portals for $5 well then your going to need a website.

Then do you need a web developer or can you self build. Well that is entirely a matter of available time and willingness to learn. Building a good website is an art, you need to learn a host of skills that have taken people years, but it can certainly be done. You can bypass the technical learning curve by buying a template but as is often the case despite a nice looking website, owners are left head scratching as to why it gets no visitors. So I suppose the real question is is your website a point of reference or a point of sale.
If your referring your own clients back to your webspace then a simple website with the needed information can be a useful tool. If however you expect sales, market penetration, conversion of visitors into sales, intermediate functionality then self building even from a template is going to be a long learning curve.
Keep working at it

**Graven29** · June 6th, 2012, 5:09 PM

My business idea needs the website to survive, it is the key, but it is also going to be a local operation only (at first I hope). I think it is unique idea. I spoke with a web developer today, and he quoted me a $5k ballpark figure to start. So my next question is this - if I see this as a real earner, and I will be doing all of the legwork except web development (I have decided I want this to look very professional as opposed to pieced together if I did it - as I have to sell my idea locally), how much equity should I offer the developer instead of the $5k? I want to partner with somebody, if I can't do that I need to seek investors, and how much equity should I give up there?

**Slowdive** · June 6th, 2012, 7:55 PM

Speaking as a half way decent web developer, what ever he will take, 50% of profits for a set period of time would be the basis at which I would even begin a discussion. This sounds harsh, but if the developer in question is half way good your not the first person to suggest this. Bluntly I receive an offer along these lines once every couple of months, for me as a business person investing time I could be billing for by the hour into a venture with zero starting capital is not attractive. However if your idea is that good, you may find some one who is interested, expect them to haggle hard.

Investors wont want equity in an idea, you are basically selling a percent of nothing at this time. They will want returns of X amount in X time usually. If I decided to risk 10k of my money with your venture I do not want an equity in your potential debt or 50% of nothing if you go bust. I want a decent and often high return on my risk within a period of time. You would need a website, clientèle and some real profit potential before people become interested in equity. What I might try seeing as your looking for a relatively small sum is to raise a loan, if your business has an offline component you may be able to justify that way.
Although once again if your idea is truly a revolution to someone, well then anything can happen. However if you search for the forums for terms like potential you will soon realize the business world places very little value on an ideas potential.

This post is not intended to discourage you, it would just be counter productive to sugar coat harsh realities.

**Clinton** · June 11th, 2012, 10:16 AM

You could perhaps negotiate that 50% down to 20% or something if you're guaranteeing it i.e. if we don't make $x of profit in the first year I will pay you that money out of my own pocket. It is your project, not the developer's, and the success or otherwise of the project depends both on how good your idea is and on how good you are at converting it into a business. He's taking a big risk on the latter if he doesn't already know you and if you don't already have proof that you can build successful businesses.