The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Creating an amazing platform! But how?

NotLikeYou

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
67%
Oct 6, 2019
6
4
Hey I hope you`re doing well,
This is my first Post here so if theres a mistake in it feel free to correct me.
I read Millionaire Fastlane and Unscipted. I took a long time of brainstorming and searching for ideas daily. I was really surprised that I got a lot of ideas.
After I had enough I filtered them out and chose the in my opinion best one.
The idea provides huge value in a niche which isnt served until now. It will be a platform where people can interact and trade. My company will takeover the part of verification, which means that we will verify the quality of the products and make sure that they are legit. For those and some other services we will take a commission. I already got a lot of positive feedback from my environment. I also checked if there is demand and in my opinion there definitely is.

So this was the fun part, now it`s getting serious. I noted all steps I have to go to make this a profitable business and will go step by step.
The first point is also the hardest, the programming of the platform. I already have a little bit of experience with wordpress and know I could easily create an awesome wordpress website. The probleme is that this is absolutely irrelevant, because I need more features than those, wordpress websites provide, for example: Allowing Users to register on the website, to message others, to send offers etc.

So now there are 4 things I can do:
1. Learn to code by myself
2. Find someone who can do it and offer him a huge part of the company
3. Save up money until I can efford to pay a good developer
4. Cry alot and pray to god that he drops 50k in front of my door tomorrow

The situation is as follows:
I am 18 and still in school right now. After school I will take one year to work to save up money and besides try to build a profitable business and to learn as much as possible. After that I will study something which provides me with the skills to help and to coach other companys (Even if I study it to help my own company lol).
I am going through school very easily which means, that I don`t have to invest much time for school etc. I have a lot of time, which means I should go for way 1. The probleme is I dont know how hard it is, to learn how to code. Do u guys think its worth it, for 1 business idea to take like 2,3 years time to learn how to code? And can everyone learn to code?

The 2. way to solve this looks like the most comfortable idea, but like the idea which hurts the most. Offering someone liek 50% or more of your company, only that he codes for you seems very painful to me and anyways, who tf wants to invest a lot of time and work to get 50% of a company, which makes 0€ revenue atm?

The 3. way sounds better than the 2 but still hurts. I am convinced of my idea, and think it will be worth it to invest the money, but on the other hand, this is my first idea and I think everyone is in love with his first idea, even if its crap so I am not sure if its worth to burn lets say 50K which I saved up for years.

The 4. way sounds the best and even the most realistic way to solve this!

Okay lets get real. I think 1, going the hard way, is probably the best way to solve this probleme, even if it takes very much time and is really hard to learn I guess. I hope that someone out there who maybe got experience with programming can share his experience with me and can help me to decide if its worth it!
If not I will see if idea 2 or 3 is the way I will go. Please let me know what you think of it and feel free to critize,if there is anything to critize, and to share your honest opinion with me, would really appreciate it!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Kid

Gold Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
98%
Mar 1, 2016
1,736
1,707
You have fifth option:
Find investor.

Welcome to the forums! :)
 

Brewmacker

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
164%
Jun 17, 2019
214
352
40
The Netherlands
DUDE! I am in exactly the same place as you are. Except 6 months ahead of you in terms of coding the platform and now faced with the same decision, same risks and same love for the first idea haha.

I am estimating the costs of the coding to be round the 30K mark. I am now faced with the decision, do I keep learning and code or do I bite the bullet. I am also looking at clever ways to do this whilst minimising risk.

What you should think about first is the design. After following a UX course on Udemy I downloading and am using the wireframe too Adobe XD. I cannot believe I waited this long to design exactly what I want. It has taken nearly a week, but imagine doing this direct with coding. So my advice is design the app and test it as an MVP rather than splurging out directly on a coder.

This wireframe design will clearly define your features and well as linking up the pages and can me downloaded to your phone and tested as a mobile app. You might find in the end it will cost less than you think.

Regardless you are stepping into a vast new world, and it is BIG. But you only have to learn the process once. I will gladly follow your progress moving forward.
 

NotLikeYou

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
67%
Oct 6, 2019
6
4
Thank you for your answers, I am really happy to see those positive reactions!
@Kid thank you for this idea, really forgot about this! I think this would be a real great way to fix this Probleme. But now I am not sure if this is a real fact or just a limiting believe, but the facts are that I am just 18, and have nothing but the idea to convince some investors. Also I don’t have a Network Right now and wouldn’t even know how to meet investors. Would love to get feedback if this are true facts which I should face, or if they are just limiting believes.

@Brewmacker thank you for sharing ur experience, I appreciate that. It helps a lot to see that other people struggle at the same stages but I think this means that the Commandment of entry is done Wright ;). And I want to be honest with you, I didn’t understand 50% of your thread, but what I took out for me is, that I will learn code. Not only for this idea, but just because skills like this are always good to have and can only bring you advantages.

I got a friend which is deep into IT and I will ask him if he could help me making the website while I learn how to code, but I don’t think that he will do it. I will also get the knowledge of how to get investors on your side. The last question is, if this is maybe a step too big for the first project and if it would better for me to learn some Amazon FBA Bullshit or something, not to get rich, but to get some money for the real first business. However, I will do what is necessary to make steps forward, thank you for your support!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

alexkuzmov

Gold Contributor
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
130%
Sep 20, 2019
1,014
1,318
Bulgaria
Hey I hope you`re doing well,
This is my first Post here so if theres a mistake in it feel free to correct me.
I read Millionaire Fastlane and Unscipted. I took a long time of brainstorming and searching for ideas daily. I was really surprised that I got a lot of ideas.
After I had enough I filtered them out and chose the in my opinion best one.
The idea provides huge value in a niche which isnt served until now. It will be a platform where people can interact and trade. My company will takeover the part of verification, which means that we will verify the quality of the products and make sure that they are legit. For those and some other services we will take a commission. I already got a lot of positive feedback from my environment. I also checked if there is demand and in my opinion there definitely is.

So this was the fun part, now it`s getting serious. I noted all steps I have to go to make this a profitable business and will go step by step.
The first point is also the hardest, the programming of the platform. I already have a little bit of experience with wordpress and know I could easily create an awesome wordpress website. The probleme is that this is absolutely irrelevant, because I need more features than those, wordpress websites provide, for example: Allowing Users to register on the website, to message others, to send offers etc.

So now there are 4 things I can do:
1. Learn to code by myself
2. Find someone who can do it and offer him a huge part of the company
3. Save up money until I can efford to pay a good developer
4. Cry alot and pray to god that he drops 50k in front of my door tomorrow

The situation is as follows:
I am 18 and still in school right now. After school I will take one year to work to save up money and besides try to build a profitable business and to learn as much as possible. After that I will study something which provides me with the skills to help and to coach other companys (Even if I study it to help my own company lol).
I am going through school very easily which means, that I don`t have to invest much time for school etc. I have a lot of time, which means I should go for way 1. The probleme is I dont know how hard it is, to learn how to code. Do u guys think its worth it, for 1 business idea to take like 2,3 years time to learn how to code? And can everyone learn to code?

The 2. way to solve this looks like the most comfortable idea, but like the idea which hurts the most. Offering someone liek 50% or more of your company, only that he codes for you seems very painful to me and anyways, who tf wants to invest a lot of time and work to get 50% of a company, which makes 0€ revenue atm?

The 3. way sounds better than the 2 but still hurts. I am convinced of my idea, and think it will be worth it to invest the money, but on the other hand, this is my first idea and I think everyone is in love with his first idea, even if its crap so I am not sure if its worth to burn lets say 50K which I saved up for years.

The 4. way sounds the best and even the most realistic way to solve this!

Okay lets get real. I think 1, going the hard way, is probably the best way to solve this probleme, even if it takes very much time and is really hard to learn I guess. I hope that someone out there who maybe got experience with programming can share his experience with me and can help me to decide if its worth it!
If not I will see if idea 2 or 3 is the way I will go. Please let me know what you think of it and feel free to critize,if there is anything to critize, and to share your honest opinion with me, would really appreciate it!

1. Everyone can learn how to code (well not everyone, if you are blind you obviously cannot)
Learning how to code is 100% worth the effort.

2. 100% of nothing is still nothing so I wouldnt worry about percentages and how painful you perceive it to be. You can split profits and maintain company control at the same time. It only depends on what kind of contract you sign.

3. You`ve no way of knowing your overall cost therefore you`ve no way of knowing how much to save.
Can you test your idea with a 1000 bucks? What about 500? Or 5000?
What is the minimum amount of cash you need to get hard proof for your idea?

4. Totally works, 10/10 would recommend.

To me it seems like you are getting ahead of yourself.
Invisioning a grand platform and planning how to build it way before you have any proof from the market.
Thats not a bad thing necessarily. You should think BIG but act small.
Find the easiest and fastest way to test your idea, positive feedback from your environment doesnt count. You need to see if people will pay you to verify the quality of said products.
 

NotLikeYou

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
67%
Oct 6, 2019
6
4
Thank you for your honest advice @alexkuzmov. To be honest I really felt something resisting in my body when I read your anwser, I think it is a strong feeling that you could be wright. I decided that beside school I will definitely learn code as I said before. But you really got a point with idea 2. I dont know for sure how much money it will take me to let another person code my website you are wright, but I can just guess that it will be around 10-30K which is right now way to much for me. And you got a point when you say positive feedback from the environment is bullshit, it is something I already thought about inside me. I will look for ways to get a hard proof for my idea, even if rn I absolutely have no idea how to get that, but I will do my research.
 

Kid

Gold Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
98%
Mar 1, 2016
1,736
1,707
Try to see also this thread National science foundation seed funding

especially @Bertram's answer.

It looks like having to dig into reading government documents but it's better then having no option.

If you are not U.S citizen, there might be similar programs in your region.

And about your age, you could partner with someone older that would act as a representative or a mentor.
Maybe some small investors meetings or angel investors groups might be the place to find older partner.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

MichaelCash

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
34%
Apr 7, 2013
109
37
48
New York
Recent time I became more attracted to businesses where I can validate the idea really quick. For example, when I sell something and see the demand right away. If you are building a website like this, think about user acquisition and promotion too. Think about risks that you build a platform and then you will have hard time to have users sign up. Note, most startups fail at user acquisition phase after they build a product. My advise is to mitigate those risks, try to setup a FB group or a discussion forum and build your audience first. When you have followers then you can start building your product
 

Nick M.

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
230%
Jul 13, 2018
175
403
Do you need a website to validate the idea?

Here's another option
:
  • Find a niche that you think would benefit from such a platform
  • Find several buyers/sellers offline, and help facilitate the trade
  • Repeat until you have the funds/skills to create a website
You wouldn't want to spend hundreds of hours learning to code and creating a website only to learn that there's no demand in the niche you choose.

Here's another option:

With WordPress, there are several plugins that will help you do what you're looking for. You just need to find the right ones. They may be paid, but a few hundred dollars in paid plugins sure beats a 50K website. Since you already know a bit of WordPress, this may be a great way to get off the ground quickly with a site.

If for some reason you need to learn to code in WordPress to customize the plugins, here's a great introductory course on Udemy (not an affiliate link):


Here's yet another option:

Let's assume that there's some niche that needs your idea. You just don't know the niche.
  1. Validate a couple of niches offline, see which one has the most demand
  2. Simultaneously, work on a website that you can transform into any niche
  3. Once you find a niche with plenty of demand, spend just a bit more time fitting your generic site to the niche
  4. You already have customers (because you validated the idea) and can seed the site
  5. You already have a marketing strategy that worked offline to find more customers to use your site
There are probably more experienced people here on the forum with better advice, but these are just a few of my thoughts.
 

NotLikeYou

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
67%
Oct 6, 2019
6
4
Thanks to everyone who answered me and gives value to my Life without taking anything, I really appreciate that! Meanwhile I didnt answer Here I Made Progress. I built the Habit from 0 hours daily to Invest 2 hours daily straight into entrepreneur related stuff. To b honest, for Sure there have been some days when I was lazy and Just read and summarized a book. Nevermind it still helped me and was still a Progress.

I also Made Progress in my Business idea. I didnt got funded by a Project by the gouvernment, but in my opinion I Received Something even better.
In Germany there exists a non profit organisation called "Startup teens" which was founded by 2 very succesfull young entrepreneurs. As long as u stillgo to school and are younger than 20 you can apply for a mentorship. U can also write a businessplan with ur mentor and send it to the organisation. If you are one of the best 3 businessplans you will fly to Berlin and get the chance of receiving 10.000€ in capital.

However this is really something I am so thankful for. I already called him and he took an hour to answer my questions and give me advice about the next steps.
As I read today in unscripted , his advice to get a soft proof for the idea. I already created a landing page weeks ago where u can subscribe to the newsletter.

The next step is now to take 500€ and advertise the landing page and the project on Instagram and Facebook to see, how the market reacts. Before I do this I will optimize my landing oage together with my mentor to make safe, that if they don't click the ad, then because the idea is trash, and not because of a landingpage which scares people more than it invites them to take a look lol. Meanwhile I will work on the business plan to gather facts and studies about the market my business will take place in.

The only real probleme is that I dont own 500€ right now. Since I go to school and work for 380€ a month it will be also hard to save it. I have a site hustle which somethings could bring much money in a month and nearly zero in another. But because I really got big knowledge about this topic, I am thinking about creating an online course where I tech people the knowledge to take make also money of this site hustle which only a few know.
Don't get my wrong,I don't want to scam anyone or cheat value with a "This course will u make a millionaire" message. My aim is really to provide value and I am also in the position to do this because I got experience, huge knowledge and it's a way to make side money only a few know.
The aim is really to provide as much value as possible in a time period which is as short as possible. I was thinking about taking 2 months for this project, grinding everyday as much as I can to gather the money for my soft proof.

I think this is the fastest way to get the money that I need to bring my business a step further. And since the side hustle is rare there doesnt exist a course in german language about this topic, so please don't think my idea for the online course is to provide u the 50 hottest products for amazon fba or some BS like that!

Thanks for taking time to read this. I just wanted to let u know what happened in the time I didnt answer here and what my concrete next steps are. If u feel like u got the knowledge/experience to give me some advice I would really appreciate that, thank you very much!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

GonnaBe2020

New Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
113%
Dec 4, 2019
15
17
The next step is now to take 500€ and advertise the landing page and the project on Instagram and Facebook to see, how the market reacts.
Regardless of the money you don't have, it sounds a bit passive to me, I don't know how "targeted" that advertising is, but I would be concerned that the audience I want to reach might not see the ad... Are you certain the ad can positively be shown mainly to the potential users of your product ?

The idea provides huge value in a niche which isn't served until now.
Sounds like you have a very clear idea of who you are targeting. This and the ad idea tell me that you would know precisely who is a "prospect" and who isn't. So if you know that, why don't you try to get in touch directly with those people ? Email, phone, in person, whatever ? This won't cost other than time and you might get more insight from them this way ...
 

DoTheWork

Silver Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
178%
Jun 12, 2019
317
563
I wouldn't underestimate the capabilities of WordPress. I'm currently building a platform that is run on WordPress, and I have a ton of features. Users can sign up, send messages, leave reviews, create advertisements, and much more.

Check it out at AgServiceFinder.com.
 

BlueMoon

Bronze Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
287%
Jun 3, 2018
38
109
Earth
Would learn how to code.

But to keep it simple I would:
1. Learn how to code to develop a minimal lovable product.
2. Have a designer beautiful visuals of the end product you have in mind.
3. Test-drive the MVP and find product market fit by iterations.
4. Raise a bit of capital to grow it.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top