I'll probably go back and forth on this one a few times in this blog. I'll think of my idea as "serving" folks on the internet, which is a noble/good thing, and then in the same breath wonder about how much money I can make with this idea. Given as how I think I'm basically wedged into a business model of advertising or bust, the revenue opportunities - as relucant as I am to admit it - are slim. To actually make money, I would eventually have to get creative with what I could sell; whether that was direct to the web community or to companies who could use the technology.
Ok, so lets maybe get back on track here a little bit. The startup - all started with an idea. Since it is still in the final stages of inclubation, I can't actually disclose the idea just yet. I have some small financial "adjustments" (i.e. I'm selling some crap in my basement to fund this thing) but once they are complete I will be registering the domain name and getting hosting sorted out. This much I think I know: I am going to go with GoDaddy. That may even be one of the very first big decisions I or any startup has to make. Maybe I need to establish what even constitutes a big decsion. I think something which cannot realistically be undone should be considered a big decision. The idea I select is a big decision. The name I choose is a pretty big decision. Where I get my hosting is - by my definition - not a big decision, since I could change web hosting companies in a weekend, without a disruption. In fact, I'm sure it happens all the time. So perhaps it should be noted only as an anecdote - I'm going to sign up with GoDaddy. I set up a friend's site there, and added a promo code of WALK2, and I got something like 20% off my order, which meant I "saved" $10. I suppose that's not bad, considering Godaddy gives you 10GB of space and a whole heck of a lot of bandwidth to burn.
So I mentioned the name as a big decision. I always shudder at that thought. Marketing types would nod in agreement (big time) that the name of the site is vital. I'm kind of saying it is as well, but not really for the same reasons. True, you want a name that doesn't suck, but so long as you can go with it, talk about it, write about it, etc, then chances are its about as good a name as "YouTube" or "MySpace". I mean seriously, they have marketing people involved in these decisions? As I understand it, a couple of kids came up with "YouTube" and it is one of the most important sites on the net. What more could a marketing person add to the conversation. I came up with a name that I think is fairly savvy, and it also relates to the site itself - the service the site provides. Kind of like "Facebook", if the name "Facebook" were savvy. The final comment I have on the name is this: it has to be something you can live with. Once it is rolling, you can't tell people "Oh gee, remember how I used to call it www.digg.com? Well, I decided www.yipperyapper.com was better...so can you please update your bookmarks?" It doesn't work that way...people may be able to accept the pace of change on the internet, but that kind of change has virtually no audience. In the "biz" they call it "rebranding" and it sucks big time for everyone involved. The only reasonable reason to rebrand is because someone is suing you over the name.
I guess the name is still not at the root of the matter. To get to that, you really need to consider the idea. It startles me that I hear Venture Capitalists won't sign non-disclosure agreements with entrepreneurs because ideas themselves have so little value. It kind of flies in the face of the whole patent thing, doesn't it? At least most patents carry a significant barrier to entry - I might have a great idea for the web, and Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, you name the big fish - they could probably whip it up in a weekend. The web is kind of the anti-barrier, and efforts are made all the time to lower the bar again. Programming languages don't get harder to use, that much is for sure. I cut my teeth on C++ with some assistence from ATL. To get an app truly ready for prime time involved a QA effort that was otherworldly. Just some of the garbage we went thru that you don't even think about with C# - releasing pointers, GDI objects that suck because you didn't select the old object before you deleted it; the mess that is the char array; IDispatch interfaces (using the IWebBrowser...trust me it sucks like there is no tomorrow)...no question, things have come a long way. So why are ideas so worthless? Well, the answer is, they're not. Not if the intent of the idea is to serve. If the intent of the idea is to make money, then yes, it probably is worthless. I think Microsoft Word is worthless. But I think Microsoft Virtual Server is valuable, even though I am not so naive as to think Microsoft put VM software on the market in an effort to "serve" its customers. Making Windows a system that can concurrently run Linux helps gray the line between the two...thus helping maintain or increase Windows market share. And obviously, if you can reduce the IT spending on hardware while having little to no impact on IT Windows spending, that's pretty much a huge win for Microsoft.
Anyhow, back to the idea. Mine was going to be an idea that served. I have had too many ideas whose sole function is to make money, and it has been painful watching them die. Its not so much that the ideas themselves were so bad, but in hindsight, it seemed very arrogant to ask for money for the types of things I was offering. One was a text to speech instant messaging system, which was pretty savvy back in 1999. Although the core idea there was a free service, the idea ultimately was to set up kiosks all over the place and tie into the normal phone line. All still sounds good, but if you think about it, even $0.25 per use is just ridiculous, because all the system really did was read email on the receiver's end. And free is all that service could ever hope to be. The next idea was a button users could put on their site where if visitors clicked on it, they site owner would be notified and they could call the customer at the customer's leisure. The idea being this way the customer doesn't have to wait on the phone, they can be called directly. A good idea, but I started ouot by trying to charge a monthly fee....and unless the service had taken off like a mad cat when it was free, there was absolutely no chance it was going to take off if there was a cost associated with it. And that really is the fundamental connundrum: everyone - myself included - fully expects the web to be 100% free. So how do you set out to do something noble, and turn it into enough of a money making venture to pay your bills and a little something for your efforts?
As I continue to explore my latest startup, I will post my findings in this regard. I feel a name and an idea must have something to do with making money, and I also believe you have to work to deliver something which serves people first and foremost. As it stands right now, I have a name and an idea that "serves", and I have absolutely no clue how it will make money. My initial guess is through advertising, but at this stage, I really don't know how successful that will be. In upcoming posts, I will aim to narrow this down and produce from my experiences a map that can be used to repeat the success I hope to have. I look at it like this: website development, regardless of how silly this may sound, is my hobby. I recently came to this realization when it dawned on me how much time I spend not only working on my web projects, but how long in a historical sense. I mean, I have been at the web for 10 years. Granted, it has help yield a great career in the software field, but the internet itself has remained very elusive for me. Perhaps the challenge is the thing itself. We'll see.
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