What's up, this is why I'm here...

[sk24iam]

Hey what's up,

My name is Stephen and my mind revolves around thinking about new business ideas. I've been a frequent member at oth entrepreneur forums and have recently joined here. I'm 23 years old and have been working in consulting since I've graduated college. In the past I have started several small businesses such as a car detailing company, college t-shirt eccommerce site, and a financial betting website. I have made these simply to get some experience in starting and managing/marketing a business. None of them were ever made to actually live off of, call them a hobby if you will.

About a year ago, I started working on a breakthrough business idea. I am convinced that it could be a great success. I spent all of my last summer writing the business plan for it. I researched the market through all my resources and was working with outsourcing companies needed to put this online business model together. I realized I would need a lot more money than I had to get things going. After several attempts at bootstrapping, I came to realize it was not going to be easy in the economy we were facing. I reached out to angel investors, but they didn't seem to be interested in seeing my business plan because of a "lack of experience." From there I entered a business plan competition. I didn't make it past the second round because of a lack of sustainability. Apparently the judges were looking for something going green.

The main issue holding me back is the extensive coding needed to write the website for this business model. Hiring web designers/freelancers is very expensive for what I need done. I have recently ordered books on learning PHP and MYSQL. I plan on spending the next year learning to develop the dynamic site that I need. I love this site because the success stories are very motivating. I believe I will be able to build this multimillion dollar business I have planned and I soon will be writing about my own success story haha. I am constantly in an entreprenuer state of mind, writing down new ideas that would solve daily problems all the time. Stay tuned...

 

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[Runum]

Welcome to the fastlane, glad you made it. How did you find us? What are your plans for the future? We don't allow the sig link until you have been a contributor here for a while.:cheers:

 

[ZDS]

Maybe you could network and try to find a coder that is interested in working on it for a stake in the company, IE: percentile based. You can also try outsourcing the work to other countries, you can get coders for 3-5 dollars/hour.

 

[sk24iam]

Ya, I talked to a few coders who work for a consulting company and they didn't seem interested in taking time to get involved with a startup. Even hiring international coders would be expensive. It would cost 100k for a webdesign firm to do what I need, no matter how much less than that, it will still be pretty expensive. And, I would like to work close with the coder. The quality of how this is built is essential to it selling itself.

 

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[michael]

Ya, I talked to a few coders who work for a consulting company and they didn't seem interested in taking time to get involved with a startup. Even hiring international coders would be expensive. It would cost 100k for a webdesign firm to do what I need, no matter how much less than that, it will still be pretty expensive. And, I would like to work close with the coder. The quality of how this is built is essential to it selling itself.

You're defeating yourself with that attitude.

Read about Scott Cook the founder of Quickbooks, he didn't know a thing about programming but posted up a poster saying 'programmer wanted' at a Cali university, a programmer named Tom Proulx responded and together they founded quickbooks and made billions.

Check out the sources used for both wikipedia articles and you will see why it was successful, not because they spent $100k building it but because they listened to and reacted to all the criticism from customers to create a better product that was more user friendly and efficient than the offerings from Microsoft.

Also remember you don't have to launch from day one with a fancy $100k bugfree application, you're a newbie to business so start small and find some [url="http://blog.asmartbear.com/youre-a-little-company-now-act-like-one.html"early adopters[/url] willing to be first to use your great new program in return for helping you iron out any bugs and build a better product.

These early adopters will save you from spending so much in development and serve as a market test to give you real feedback on whether or not your product is worth paying the price for and how you can improve it and make it better.

I am sure in this economy there are thousands of Comp Sci students and graduates who are master programmers but cannot get a job in this economy so find one of them and have them build the program whilst you market and refine it.

 

[fanocks2003]

sk24Iam, you need an older supporting friend who can open up doors for you. When I can't open a door I usually find someone in his 30's and let him open the door for me and offer him a piece of the action itself. I have the idea, the older guy has his age and credibility. He doesn't have to be the brain at all.

 

[Moneymaka]

Let me guess..It's a social network?

 

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[sk24iam]

You're defeating yourself with that attitude.

Read about Scott Cook the founder of Quickbooks, he didn't know a thing about programming but posted up a poster saying 'programmer wanted' at a Cali university, a programmer named Tom Proulx responded and together they founded quickbooks and made billions.

Check out the sources used for both wikipedia articles and you will see why it was successful, not because they spent $100k building it but because they listened to and reacted to all the criticism from customers to create a better product that was more user friendly and efficient than the offerings from Microsoft.

Also remember you don't have to launch from day one with a fancy $100k bugfree application, you're a newbie to business so start small and find some willing to be first to use your great new program in return for helping you iron out any bugs and build a better product.

These early adopters will save you from spending so much in development and serve as a market test to give you real feedback on whether or not your product is worth paying the price for and how you can improve it and make it better.

I am sure in this economy there are thousands of Comp Sci students and graduates who are master programmers but cannot get a job in this economy so find one of them and have them build the program whilst you market and refine it.

I will definitely look into this. I am currently in the Washington D.C. area so I will seek out the nearby schools for recently graduated computer science majors. I am a little hesitant about this, it would be easy for the coder to run off with the idea and start it himself. Any ideas on how to avoid this?

sk24Iam, you need an older supporting friend who can open up doors for you. When I can't open a door I usually find someone in his 30's and let him open the door for me and offer him a piece of the action itself. I have the idea, the older guy has his age and credibility. He doesn't have to be the brain at all.

I'm not sure what you're saying? Are you referring to obtaining financing?

Let me guess..It's a social network?

Nope, this is purely a business model. It is a unique marketplace for a specific niche. There is nothing like this out there and it is very much needed.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Welcome and thanks for introducing yourself.

 

[cmaq]

I'm working on a website right now that you would think costs thousands of dollars at the very least to create. I do have programming experience, but I value my time and was able to hire someone for a price in the 100's to create a fully interactive website. It may not look like a million bucks, but it's coming along great and I'm pretty happy with it. If the website is a success, I'll invest more money into it. You can create business just find a way to get over the obstacles, there is always a way. I have created other businesses and had many obstacles that I thought would cost too much money or were just impossible; i still got past them.

 

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[Toiletcake]

I have been hiring providers overseas from sites like elance.com at a fraction of what it costs to get the same work done in the states. If you are on a budget check it out. You might be able to get rolling with your fastlane idea this way. A lot of these overseas companies work for a few dollars an hour and speak perfect English. Hope this helps. Best of luck

 

[chrisc]

I was introduced to a site called guru.com which is a place that you can put an ad for programmers. I have not used it yet for my websites I want to start, but the person that introduced me has and was very bullish on the site. He gets programmers in places such as India to produce a site for him very inexpensively. Just a thought.

 

[sk24iam]

I have used elance and have hired programmers overseas. In fact, I used elance for my current website and after the settled fix fee, any additional services were 20/hr overseas. I will consider taking this route for this project but I think it would benefit me in the long run to learn how to build a fully functional dynamic website and database on my own first. This way I will better understand the backbone of the system.

 

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[chrisc]

I would imagine that there is not a better time to negotiate with a programmer for a turn key job. They are suffering just like everyone else. Not to capitalize on anothers misfortune but this may be your best time to do this. On the site I referred, and others I am sure, you can shop the job out turnkey and have a total fixed price for the job. It is what I am looking at doing, but likely on a much smaller scale than you are. I wish you luck with it, sounds like you have your eye on the target.

 

[sk24iam]

Ya I most definitely have my eye on the target. As good as I am at what I do in the corporate world, I'm too creative and bored with to do it for the rest of my life...

Anyone have any advice on steps to take to learn how to build a complex interactive dynamic website?

I have had a decent understanding of html and graphics since highschool but my majors in college were finance and management,not computer science. I recently just purchased to books from amazon, 1)php/mysql, 2)advanced html,xhtml,css. I also have many tutorials online bookmarked. I feel this is a good start but I am open to any advice on the best way to conquer these programming languages.

 

[mkzhang]

Ya I most definitely have my eye on the target. As good as I am at what I do in the corporate world, I'm too creative and bored with to do it for the rest of my life...

Anyone have any advice on steps to take to learn how to build a complex interactive dynamic website?

I have had a decent understanding of html and graphics since highschool but my majors in college were finance and management,not computer science. I recently just purchased to books from amazon, 1)php/mysql, 2)advanced html,xhtml,css. I also have many tutorials online bookmarked. I feel this is a good start but I am open to any advice on the best way to conquer these programming languages.

I would suggest you to look into PHP.

Basically you have a skeleton frame for the site, but the main body of your site is all variables.

If user wants to do A, then load A_1, A_2 etc
If user wants to do B, then load B_1, B_2 etc

Where variables A_1 are actually lines of HTML stored in the SQL database.

I hope that gives you a good idea of how to proceed. Or maybe you've already come across this :groove:

Also, if you draw out the entire function of your site in flow diagrams such as T goes this path, F goes this path, you can split the work and outsouce the programming bits at a time for cheap.

 

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