Tell.me The Inquisitive Network

[CryptO]

My Progress Thread For

Tell.me The Inquisitive Network

Step 1 : Vision - Complete

Step 2 : Finding suitable domain name - Completed

Step 3 : Getting Quotes and Developer - Completed

Step 4 : Finance - Completed

Step 5 : Logo - nearly completed

Step 6 : Landing page - Scheduled 12 May

Step 7 : Working with developer to produce vision - Underway

Step 8 : Viral Marketing Campaign - To do

Step 9 : Launch - June 2012

Step 10+ : Evolving the site after launch and keeping it innovative with vision - Ongoing

 

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[CryptO]

Where I am at

Yesterday, I paid the first bill to kickstart this site $1500.

It feels more than good to know that it is officially underway and not just electric pulses shimmering arround in my head.

I am looking forward to the work week starting so that I can be in close contact with the project manager and together we can produce a clear sumize of where we are taking this. I have naturally very high expectations so I know I will be a difficult but rewarding person to work with.

When I asked for quotes for the full vision of my site, they were coming in between $20K and $50K

Obviously way out of my reach for the moment so I have had to strip back to the bare essentials to keep to my all encompassing budget of $7K

I have had to sacrifice 50% of my company to use the domain name I had my heart on. I am a firm believer that if you are going to commit to something big you should try do it right, right from the start and let nothing get in your way of getting what you truely want.

I do not really see giving up 50% as a loss. I weigh it up as a gain. I have gained a very credible partner, a successful entrepeneur, who wants me to suceed because it is equally his interest. This means that although I do not have leaverage to sell off a % of my company for future investment, if he sees my site working and traffic increasing, he will jump straight in and invest himself and commit teams of people to develop and increase our marketing strategy.

Also another big plus, because of his track record he will attract investors, if needed, much easier than I could on my own.

Sidethought

One really great thing when heading the start of something that has a chance of being used and appreciated by perhaps millions of people is that it makes you constantly feel like a kid the night before christmas lol

In other words, just by trying to do something that can have a great positive outcome you get a fulfilement of hope that is very rewarding in itself, much like the feeling you get in the days leading up to buying a new car or getting a new game etc etc. The excitement of anticipation is often better than when you have the thing you have been waiting for. Therefore no matter what the outcome when I launch this site, I will always be fulfilled with anticipation for the day that it takes off or for how many people will join etc etc and I doubt that that will change as Tell.me is an ongoing entity that we will be adding more complex modules to in order to make it the best in its class.

 

[DeletedUser394]

Most importantly... do you own the domain? (tell.me)

Pretty sure you're not Juan Carlos.

 

[CryptO]

Most importantly... do you own the domain? (tell.me)

Pretty sure you're not Juan Carlos.

No, I am not Juan Carlos, but I have partnered with him so I can use his domain name.

We are going to agree to an exit strategy and the domain name goes with it and when and if we sell the domain goes 50/50 in the value of the sale price.

I own the platform. He owns the domain. We are partners.

Edit : I do not think two people can own a domain name. However a domain name can be company owned, which is what will probably happen.

 

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[yahdmon]

I especially like the company-owned part... keeps you separate from the company.

Way to go though -- great to seee you doing your thing. Can hardly wait to see it in action.

All the best.

 

[CryptO]

Finally got my logo finished to the point I feel it is finished in the way that reflects my vision for the site. (sorry if you don't like it but give it a chance it may just grow on you).

Nameservers now switched and with the hosting and development company. Initial landing page should be up soon!!

Conference call booked tomorrow night with my partner on this via Skype where we will be discussing the road ahead.

Scheduled launch 06.06.12

 

[The-J]

I like the name.

What your Unique Selling Proposition? What makes Tell.me STAND OUT from ChaCha, or Yahoo Answers? ChaCha dominates the free SMS question space (it's run completely off of ad revenue). I'm curious cuz Tell.me sounds like it could catch on pretty quickly.

 

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[CryptO]

I like the name.

What your Unique Selling Proposition? What makes Tell.me STAND OUT from ChaCha, or Yahoo Answers? ChaCha dominates the free SMS question space (it's run completely off of ad revenue). I'm curious cuz Tell.me sounds like it could catch on pretty quickly.

Landing page up.

Initially, we will be focusing on engaging a social interaction via the asking of questions. Running your own caption competition is just one use that people will be able to do with our platform. The user will have the ability to rate answers based on his/her preference. Funniset or most factual, you specify, you choose.

The platform will evolve to create answer and question communities that engage the development of your social network by encouraging people to help others find out what they need to know pointing them in the right direction via more complicated modules that we will be adding further down the line after initial launch.

 

[sam22]

Cool name. You should have a signup box on the landing page and start collecting email addresses.

 

[CryptO]

Cool name. You should have a signup box on the landing page and start collecting email addresses.

That's a very good idea. Thanks!!

I'll try to get that up tomorrow.

I was also thinking of getting a Facebook page up too

 

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[sam22]

Yeah no problem. And if you use something like LaunchRock (it's free), you get insights on pageviews, signups, and conversion rates.

 

[Milkanic]

I suggest you tie in with Facebook as much as possible. Study Pinterest and how they exploded.

 

[andviv]

Pretty cool.

If I were leading this effort, I would open a text box on the page right away to start gathering questions and have some answers ready by launch time.
That way, on 6/6 the site will have content.

Nothing bores users more than sites with no content.

 

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[AJ.]

I was also thinking of getting a Facebook page up too

This is the internet man!
Go do the Facebook page NOW.
Then do the twitter account... NOW.
T.N.T. -- Today, Not Tomorrow

TNT!

Cool name.

Incorporate ASAP... and transfer the domain over to the company.
Something goes awry... you can have everything, yet if he has the front door... you're screwed.

I once read: Anyone willing to go 50/50 is willing to accept less.

Don't give him 50... give him less.

My 0.02

=)

 

[CryptO]

This is the internet man!
Go do the Facebook page NOW.
Then do the twitter account... NOW.
T.N.T. -- Today, Not Tomorrow

TNT!

Cool name.

Incorporate ASAP... and transfer the domain over to the company.
Something goes awry... you can have everything, yet if he has the front door... you're screwed.

I once read: Anyone willing to go 50/50 is willing to accept less.

Don't give him 50... give him less.

My 0.02

=)

I own .2% more

As soon as we can see that the site is going to go viral (it may take months, who knows) and we can see an exponentiol flow of users signing up, a company will be formed at that point. Don't worry, it is really not in my parners interest to have his name trashed all over the internet by screwing me over. There are people like techcrunch who I am tipping off about the launch have our names. If he screws me over then all the tech blogs I am informing will be informed. Anyway, we both want to form a good relationship with one and other that involves being communicative and listening to what the other has to say. Even though I call the shots on everything to do with the development, if he sees there is something he doesnt like, I'm all ears.

I think the key is to always remain the majority owner.

I'm going to get a Facebook page up today plus Twitter - Unfortunately I have my day job on the building site, cough cough!!! So that will have to wait till this evening.

To everybody who has posted in the thread.

Thanks for all the useful input

 

[CryptO]

Hello My Dear Fastlane Friends!!!

Today I got a mockup of the Tell.me homepage.

Here it is.

Any thoughts, positive and especially negative, would be very much welcomed.

Thanks.

 

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[townhaus]

How do you plan to monetise the site? Google ads?

Also i see lots of Q/A type sites, quora, yahoo answers, chacha, reddit i suppose, linkedin answers, answers.com, stack exchange, formspring...

Do you see this as a big market your happy getting a small % of or are you planning to try and dominate?

 

[CryptO]

How do you plan to monetise the site? Google ads?

Also i see lots of Q/A type sites, quora, yahoo answers, chacha, reddit i suppose, linkedin answers, answers.com, stack exchange

Do you see this as a big market your happy getting a small % of or are you planning to try and dominate?

Add software will inevitably have to be added. Which one, has not been decided.

We are coming at it from a different angle to those sites you mentioned and do not want to compete with them, initially.

When we do we will attempt to bring some new things to the table.

 

[townhaus]

I are you creating the site yourself of paying? Personally id have started creating a cheap minimum viable product with wordpress maybe something like this Create a perfect WordPress Q&A site with this premium plugin Does this enable you to do what you need or do you have to have a custom solution.
Im sure developers can customise existing plugins/themes (but it depends on the license) rather than building from the ground up.

I suspect marketing will be the main challenge. Are you relying on social media shares to go viral or do you have other marketing tactics?

 

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[CryptO]

I are you creating the site yourself of paying? Personally id have started creating a cheap minimum viable product with wordpress maybe something like this Create a perfect WordPress Q&A site with this premium plugin Does this enable you to do what you need or do you have to have a custom solution.
Im sure developers can customise existing plugins/themes (but it depends on the license) rather than building from the ground up.

I suspect marketing will be the main challenge. Are you relying on social media shares to go viral or do you have other marketing tactics?

That wordpress Q n A is interesting and has some really cool features. It doesn't seem to have what I am looking for, for tell.me.

Which, for the first version at least, places a heavy emphasis on utilising your own social networks to answer your questions.

For press releases, I am working with somebody who has done allot of work with some big names on the internet, including google themselves.

For social marketing. I am not really decided yet. I don't want to get involved in anything that isn't organic.

The site is being translated into multiple languages.

Radio pitch being made in three languages.

Traditional SEO, backlinks etc - For this project, means absolutely nothing, and after the last penguin update - might be worth making some wiki articles!!

I am still developing ideas for marketing. Like you say. Deffinately the second biggest challenge after making this something people want to use!

If people do want to use it, then it should market itself. If they don't then I will have to a) make it better b) increase marketing effort

 

[CryptO]

Intro added to landing page.

Email capture will finally be up later today.

 

[CryptO]

Less than 20 days left til launch and already we are getting over 100 unique visits per day to the landing page. Will be intersting to see if this continues to increase. probably all from here

Today I have put up an advert on another forum. So that should get some more attention.

I have been busy making decisions with the developers and getting a decent press release put together.

Was difficult to decide about the translation. Because I know from speaking French and English that google translate get things wrong quite a bit. It is getting better though, but sometimes a literal translation does not work because of the context of the word changes depending on the sentance.

I have ended up deciding to implement google translate for the entire site, if it is not very good quality I will have to get the framework of the site translated manually and stick to having the answers and questions translated via google. I will be proof reading it in four main languages before the launch to make sure it makes sense. French, Spanish, German and ? was thinking chinese???.

If anybody with any experience in building websites in multi language has anything to contribute it would be most welcome.

 

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[CryptO]

My Press Release has been prepared, see below.

I worked with a pro to get the copy and contents of this just right, it has taken 5 days and allot of communication to get it from initial drafting to finished release. The guy that did it was not cheap but I feel he has done an excellant job in conveying the tell.me project. The idea is to give the journalists something decent to write about and to make their job as easy as possible, i.e nothing too long and over complicated but still full of infomation they can use.

This is going out sometime next week, to literally thousands upon thousands of potential journalists and bloggers, via PRweb.com.

It will be intersting to see the response. I will post up as much info as possible here so you can follow my journey with this.

This Press Release example, may be useful for those of you who have never done a press release before and you would like to see what goes into one.

Here it is.

HOLD FOR RELEASE UNTIL [DATE]

CONTACT:
Name: Cormac Lucking
Company: Tell.me
Phone: +33XXX
Email: XXX@tell.me
Website: Tell.me The Inquisitive Network. Coming 06.06.12

WHEN USERS MATTER AND MONEY DOESN’T: Q&A STARTUP PLEDGES 25 MLN TO 25 TOP USERS


Funded Startup Platform Set To Launch On [Date], Expected To Compete With Established Platforms

[Location, Date] Redefining ‘social’, Cormac Lucking and Juan Carlos Arzola are set to release their startup website Tell.me (currently in beta) on [date]. Dubbed a ‘Social Questwork’, Tell.me combines an innovative Q&A platform with a strong, truly social approach.

Tell.me allows users to post and/or answer questions in a similar way to sites like Quora.com and Blurtit.com. However, Tell.me features functionality that makes it very different and far more engaging. Unlike websites that simply provide a platform geared at factual answers, Tell.me puts a strong emphasis on engagement and user experience. Amongst the site’s features are caption competitions, and votes can be given for answers that are funny, or helpful, or that stand out for any other reason a user may find valid.

Tell.me plans to rapidly grow big: Partly due to the nifty engineering under the hood – integrating the functionality of various existing social platforms – but also because Mr. Lucking and Mr. Arzola have decided to make the Tell.me user-base the number one winner. Their pledge is to share a total of $25.000.000 between the 25 highest rated users as soon as the platform reaches its milestone $100.000.000 valuation.

Says Juan Carlos Arzola: “Current Q&A platforms lack an essential ingredient: True social engagement. If you look at sites like Facebook and Pinterest, you see that one of the main motivators for its users is the ability to share as well as rate. To communicate, interact and form communities.

“Google+ gets it right in some ways, but it lacks integrated Q&A functionality. We discovered a way to integrate those and more features, so we built a portal that smoothly blends the best of all worlds. We decided to invest however much it will take – because we know for a fact that the Tell.me platform is going to grow big.”

Cormac Lucking adds: “The way our creative team and our coding team cooperate, means that we’re able to create a social portal that goes beyond ‘just social’ – the features we will be rolling out as Tell.me grows will revolutionize the Q&A arena. For example, we’re building a widget for use on websites and a facility

Page 2


that allows users to set parameters, meaning they can predetermine which questions are presented, based on their expertise or interests.” Mr. Lucking declined specifying which further
features will be added to the platform, citing the need to protect innovative features from being ‘implemented’ by competitors. He did however add that “Privacy and the ability to decide how much personal information a user wants to share are a key feature of the site.”

Lucking: “One more thing: Tell.me will allow businesses to create individual subpages – meaning a business can engage in direct, public conversation with clients. It is this approach to engagement and communication that give us the confidence that Tell.me is going to work very well.”

Built on brainstorming and innovation, Tell.me plans to become an acclaimed brand. Creativity and experimentation are key development strategies – which tends to put stress on budgets. Interestingly, budget is not an issue: Mr. Arzola emphasizes that Tell.me enjoys “...as much funding as it takes.”

Tell.me aims to redefine what Q&A websites are about – and how users make use of integrated social features. A willingness to invest whatever it takes; a hypercreative and expert coding team; strong focus on user experience and social interaction: It all ads up to make Tell.me into a platform that existing Q&A sites should be wary of.

Cormac Lucking earned his stripes as the director and manager of his family’s enterprise, before starting a construction company in France which he has been running to this day. Juan Carloz Arzola is a serial entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in marketing as well as consumer internet services. He co-founded Code.me in 2010, and is the co-founder and president of the interactive group BrandsLike.me




###


For interviews and for more information about Tell.me, please contact Cormac Lucking.
Skype: XXXX
Phone: +33XXXX
Email: XXX@tell.me

 

[Johab]

It would have been great if you shared your press release publisher company(if your not posting it by your self)
It is great that you plan to update us on the results

 

[kwerner]

Can't say I've ever seen a 2 page press release before... :smug2:

 

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[CryptO]

Can't say I've ever seen a 2 page press release before... :smug2:

We did want to make it short as possible and 1 page would of course be great, but it is difficult to convey what we wanted to on just one page.

A quick look on google confirms that a press release should not be longer than 2 pages, so this should be ok.

 

[CryptO]

Initial Results from the Press Release

After 36 hrs the press release has generated over 500 full page reads, however it has not really generated much traffic.

To me the best part of it is that it has given the website some impressive link juice.

For the moment

Several Page Rank 8 sites are now linking back
Many Page Rank 7s
Many many Page Rank 6s
Tons of Page Rank 4 and 5s

If you were to try to buy backlinks from high page rank sites, esp Page Rank 8 and 7, it would cost a allot of money!

So, in terms of SEO I am quite impressed with the press release results.

 

[PatrickP]

Thank you for the update.

Very glad to see you are getting links, reads etc.

May I ask how or where you submitted the press release? If you prefer not to say I understand and wish you continued success.

 

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[CryptO]

Thanks

I sent it through PRWeb dot com

 

[Milkanic]

So you built a platform to compete with Facebook, Quora, and Google+ in........1 month....?