Giving away a million dollar website idea

[bungeesurfer]

I would love to see a website where people seeking capital investment could post their business idea/plan/existing business and then investors, forum members, website members could vote on which idea is the best and then generate a top ten list. If these businesses are funded by a member of the forum, then the fundee would be charged a small percentage of the amount funded. There are a few websites out there that offer to charge you to have contact with investors, but none that follow the method I have outlined.

 

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[Rickson9]

No offense, but from my point of view, a million dollar website idea is a website that is already generating a million dollars. Otherwise it is a zero dollar website idea because that is the current up to date cash flow.

Best regards.

 

[TOLDUSO]

There is something in existence on the basis of what you are talking about. However, it is purely for apple and android apps. You fill out a form including a disclosure agreement and, if they like the idea you submit, they create the app and you get a cut of any profit thereon. I think the cut you get is somewhere in the 10% range, though. Haha.

Smart to own the company, but not so smart to be a customer.

 

[FDJustin]

10% and all I have to do is give them a description? That sounds intruiging.

 

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[TOLDUSO]

10% and all I have to do is give them a description? That sounds intruiging.

It doesn't hold my attention very long. To put it in perspective, let's just say you get lucky enough to have some variation of your idea created and sold through app stores. Let's say that it is sold for $2 and sells one million times. Apple gets their cut, which I am not sure what amount that entails, then the producer gets their cut, and then you get 10% of that. Even if the producer gets $1 out of the sale or so, that only leaves you with $65,000 after taxes.

On the contrary, if someone just sucks it up and does the research, dirty work, learns coding and/or outsources, then submits it under their own license to app stores, the potential profits are far more worth your time. Be the guy paying 10%, not the guy hoping for it.

 

[RyanG]

There is something in existence on the basis of what you are talking about. However, it is purely for apple and android apps. You fill out a form including a disclosure agreement and, if they like the idea you submit, they create the app and you get a cut of any profit thereon.

What is the name of this website?

 

[TOLDUSO]

What is the name of this website?

MEDL Mobile App-Incubator

 

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[FDJustin]

Normally I'd agree with you, except I have no intention to be developing apps. I have other things that require my limited attention and focus, so I'd be plenty pleased to get 10% for ideas I'm never going to persue.

 

[andviv]

I would love to see a website where people seeking capital investment could post their business idea/plan/existing business and then investors, forum members, website members could vote on which idea is the best and then generate a top ten list. If these businesses are funded by a member of the forum, then the fundee would be charged a small percentage of the amount funded. There are a few websites out there that offer to charge you to have contact with investors, but none that follow the method I have outlined.

I saw a site that was offering a similar solution. The owner looking for capital had to pay something like $1,000 and then 5% of the capital raised in each round of funding. I consider this very cheap if you take in consideration they are taking care of the 504 rules and the subchapter D mess... that will run you way more than $1,000 in legal fees, and that is not taking in consideration the marketing cost you would have to add.

Not sure how effective it is though, I don't know anybody who has gone through a round of funding from this site.

 

[FDJustin]

I assume they need to pay out equity to the investors, Andviv? Or maybe it's a sort of group loan with an expected % ROI?

I'm curious what the actual members who contribute get out of it.

 

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[Darkside]

I would love to see a website where people seeking capital investment could post their business idea/plan/existing business and then investors, forum members, website members could vote on which idea is the best and then generate a top ten list. If these businesses are funded by a member of the forum, then the fundee would be charged a small percentage of the amount funded. There are a few websites out there that offer to charge you to have contact with investors, but none that follow the method I have outlined.

Isn't this sort of similar to what Kickstarter.com already does except much more complicated than how they do it? If you go to kickstarter.com you can get your business or project funded by the site visitors who get nothing in return other than the satisfaction of giving your business or project the necessary funding it needs to get off the ground; the website takes a small percentage of the money raised.

 

[FDJustin]

Hrm... I don't think I've seen a single thing on kickstarter where the funders don't get something in turn. They offer rewards for donation tiers. Could be anything, but it's always something. For example, someone might offer a branded T-shirt if you donate $20+. Or a branded shirt and a chocolate bar that's made of the letters 'T H A N K S'. for 30. Or that and a copy of the product for 50, etc.

Kickstarter takes 5%, plus amazon takes 5%. If the donations are classified as gifts, Americans are obligated to report it as such for tax purposes.

There's huge opportunity to gain some good insight by looking at the very successfully funded projects and trying to decypher the elements that make them so. Like gameful, it got something like 66k when it was seeking 2k. Why? Is it the rewards? The purpose? Are the people hypnotists? Work understanding.

 

[FDJustin]

Oh, and by the way... Many of the successful ones are made so because they do a good job of making the donators feel like they're making a difference. They're causing change, they're - they're enabling a greater future. They're helping their hero share her story with the world. Don't mistake the intangible as invaluable.

 

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[Darkside]

Hrm... I don't think I've seen a single thing on kickstarter where the funders don't get something in turn. They offer rewards for donation tiers. Could be anything, but it's always something. For example, someone might offer a branded T-shirt if you donate $20+. Or a branded shirt and a chocolate bar that's made of the letters 'T H A N K S'. for 30. Or that and a copy of the product for 50, etc.

Kickstarter takes 5%, plus amazon takes 5%. If the donations are classified as gifts, Americans are obligated to report it as such for tax purposes.

There's huge opportunity to gain some good insight by looking at the very successfully funded projects and trying to decypher the elements that make them so. Like gameful, it got something like 66k when it was seeking 2k. Why? Is it the rewards? The purpose? Are the people hypnotists? Work understanding.

Yea, I forgot about that element since I don't use kickstarter; I've only visited it a couple of times to see what it was about. The donations as you say would have to be involve a lot of work by the donators if they were classified as such which is why worthless items are given for donations. The real point is that the site visitors get to fund a project or business that they believe in and want to see succeed; getting a t-shirt or a coffee mug for donating money is not why they go to the website.

 

[FDJustin]

Yeah, exactly. The bonuses just help... And not only that, but they provide an extra way to cultivate the desire to support a project. Special recognition, VIP priveleges... Things like that seem to outperform just about everything, with the exception being a copy of the product if it's indeed a good product.

I'm sure that the ipod tri-stand... Thingy owes much of the funding to people who wanted a copy of it. Same with some lockpicks.

I keep studying kickstarter because it's teaching me a skill that is nearly paramount, but not part of me yet.

Leadership. Community selling is leadership.

 

[Darkside]

Yeah, exactly. The bonuses just help... And not only that, but they provide an extra way to cultivate the desire to support a project. Special recognition, VIP priveleges... Things like that seem to outperform just about everything, with the exception being a copy of the product if it's indeed a good product.

I'm sure that the ipod tri-stand... Thingy owes much of the funding to people who wanted a copy of it. Same with some lockpicks.

I keep studying kickstarter because it's teaching me a skill that is nearly paramount, but not part of me yet.

Leadership. Community selling is leadership.

Do you mean the leadership on the part of the people trying to get funding for their project or the leadership by the owners of kickstarter? I'm guessing you were referring to the former but I'd just like to clarify what you meant.

 

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[FDJustin]

I mean the former. In my perception at least, crowd sourced funding (and perhaps most other crowd sourcing?) is entirely an aspect of leadership. It's.. Taking a community, either pre-existing or making one spontaneously, and giving it a core identity. A purpose. Yet I believe to achieve that you must make each member feel as if their own sense of identity shines through. Does that make sense?

 

[Darkside]

I mean the former. In my perception at least, crowd sourced funding (and perhaps most other crowd sourcing?) is entirely an aspect of leadership. It's.. Taking a community, either pre-existing or making one spontaneously, and giving it a core identity. A purpose. Yet I believe to achieve that you must make each member feel as if their own sense of identity shines through. Does that make sense?

Yes, it makes sense. It's sort of similar to the feeling that people have for their favorite sports team. They spend money going to see them play and on merchandise not to mention countless hours parked in front of the television to watch their games even though they never receive anything of material value for it. What they receive is being part of something great; they were there supporting the team on it's quest to win a championship so in a way it's sort of like they were part of every victory as well.

There's a scene in the movie Gladiator where the emperor Commodus is talking to his sister about the people of Rome and how they loved his father for conquering Gaul and other lands even though they would never visit those lands themselves. The reason why is because they wished to see Rome become greater, and so this idea of the greatness of Rome is compelling enough to them that they would rather have the treasury spend money on war and gladiator fights than on food for the people.

You see it today as well with Americans who are vehemently pro-war; if America isn't invading countries left and right they feel like we're not as great a nation. Others see America's greatness in allowing anyone, even a recent immigrant, to rise to the top of society due to their own merit and not because of class structure.

Tom's Shoes is an example of a business that implements this sense of belonging to something great strategy to sell their shoes. If you purchase a pair of their shoes, the exact same type of shoe is donated to a child in a poor country that doesn't have shoes to wear.

Customers know that they are paying a higher price since they're actually purchasing two pairs of shoes and only receiving one pair but they flock to Tom's Shoes because of the idea behind the business; that they are helping children in poor countries walk on shoes rather than barefoot on glass and other garbage.

If you can harness this method of doing business you can succeed very well. Steve Jobs is very good at this as well; he has built a following amongst his customers not because of the products themselves but the vision behind the brand which Steve Jobs sells very well.

Keep in mind though that this is very hard to pull off if you're not being genuine. People can spot the difference between someone who is being genuine and someone who is trying to scam them pretty easily so pick something to sell that you know you will have no trouble believing in yourself.

 

[FDJustin]

Thanks for all that, it really helps shape my perception right now. To be honest, sports fans were kind of a mystery to me until now. I mean, sure I could see the fanaticism, but not the mechanics behind it!

As of this moment my grasp on leadership and community is like the everyman who looks to a painting. I recognize the display of colours and shapes. I do not see the time spent detailing a face, I cannot 'feel' the artists symbology, and I neither recognize nor care if the techniques or styles have been adapted from some long dead 'master'. There is only the picture.

Now that I need to become the painter, little insights like that, and watching masters in action (I'll have to find some nice case studies on Steve) are going to do a lot to build some initial skill.

 

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[Darkside]

Thanks for all that, it really helps shape my perception right now. To be honest, sports fans were kind of a mystery to me until now. I mean, sure I could see the fanaticism, but not the mechanics behind it!

Yes, it's really weird; even I find myself perplexed by it sometimes and I'm a big football fan. Imagine what aliens must think if they ever gaze down at a stadium during a football game; tens of thousands of people sitting down to watch a few dozen other people hit each other, run around, and expend energy for no real substantive gain. It must be even weirder when two fans fight over which of their teams is better; it's like their self-esteem is on the line even though they're not the ones actually winning and losing those games.

As of this moment my grasp on leadership and community is like the everyman who looks to a painting. I recognize the display of colours and shapes. I do not see the time spent detailing a face, I cannot 'feel' the artists symbology, and I neither recognize nor care if the techniques or styles have been adapted from some long dead 'master'. There is only the picture.

Now that I need to become the painter, little insights like that, and watching masters in action (I'll have to find some nice case studies on Steve) are going to do a lot to build some initial skill.

It's certainly a fruitful area to pursue because if you can move peoples emotions towards your own goals and make it seem as if it benefits them for your goals to be achieved then you can be very successful at business. I'm enjoying this discussion; we should explore these concepts more and try to come up with ways to become successful at selling a vision.

 

[FDJustin]

I thought that's what we were already doing, heh. Want to start a new thread on it? By the way... From what I see of Jobs right now. He's an event host. I could honestly see him shouting into a mic, "Are you ready to rooooooock?!"

 

[Darkside]

I thought that's what we were already doing, heh. Want to start a new thread on it? By the way... From what I see of Jobs right now. He's an event host. I could honestly see him shouting into a mic, "Are you ready to rooooooock?!"

Yea, he really knows how to work a crowd. Here's an old video of him explaining the concept of selling the vision of Apple:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmG9jzCHtSQ

However, I meant that we should pursue this concept more than we have so far. We could start a new thread as you suggested and use it not only to hash out the concepts but also to try to help people who are starting a business sell their vision to customers. So, if we think it's a compelling vision then potential customers might as well and if we don't then we can help that poster try to refine their idea.

 

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[FDJustin]

Yeah. I gave my intro for the topic, now you can do the same.

For anyone interested in the hijack, this is the new thread. https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/general-business-discussion/28981-leadership-marketing.html

I now leave you to the psudo-topical discussions.

 

[bungeesurfer]

Crowd Funding

I discovered crowd funding about a month ago, before I found this forum. Hasn't done me any good. indiegogo is really for film ideas than it is for business proposals.

Surf Company in Idaho -- IndieGoGo

 

[andviv]

I assume they need to pay out equity to the investors, Andviv? Or maybe it's a sort of group loan with an expected % ROI?

I'm curious what the actual members who contribute get out of it.

It looks to me like a real round of funding by investors, expecting ownership and a good ROI... check for yourself.
ProFounder

 

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[Russ H]

No offense, but from my point of view, a million dollar website idea is a website that is already generating a million dollars.

Otherwise it is a zero dollar website idea because that is the current up to date cash flow.

So. True.

:hl::hl::hl::hl:

-Russ H.

 

[bungeesurfer]

I agree. I should have titled the post differently.

 

[FDJustin]

I checked out ProFounder, Andviv. Seems private investors are real investors, expecting revenue sharing in return. Public investors only get that treatment insofar as getting their initial investment back.. Then any continued revenue for the term is given to a nonprofit.

 

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[Russ H]

I agree. I should have titled the post differently.

's OK, bungeesurfer. There are so many who come here w/"million dollar ideas" . . . they aren't willing to actually put in the work required to actually develop them-- they just want to "sell" their idea (!) for lotso bucks.

If we're lucky, perhaps a few will read this thread before posting.

We can only hope. :smx2:

-Russ H.