Looking for partners for my new startup
17 comments
I think you should drop this paranoid fear that someone will steal your idea, you'll get a lot more information coming your way. You can use this feedback to really build something people want.
What's the added value you are providing? Why is it a startup and not a website? Why not use ning.com or lovdbyless.com? What is the revenue model? How will you attract people? There are not many of people in that category, especially that age (congrats to you!), so that monetizing on ads would make sense, so you really need a strong business model.
Anyway, I encourage you to pursue whatever you got going on, but I really think you can build a prototype on your own, creating more grip at the beginning.
What's the added value you are providing? Why is it a startup and not a website? Why not use ning.com or lovdbyless.com? What is the revenue model? How will you attract people? There are not many of people in that category, especially that age (congrats to you!), so that monetizing on ads would make sense, so you really need a strong business model.
Anyway, I encourage you to pursue whatever you got going on, but I really think you can build a prototype on your own, creating more grip at the beginning.
I agree. I think starting something first with ning would be a great way to build a community with zero investment. See how your target audience takes to the idea and then decide if it makes sense to transition over to something more custom.
Do a search on searchyc.com, there have been quite a few posts like this in the past. You did not really give a description of your idea, I think it would be more helpful if you were to detail your idea a bit more.
HEY GOYS EMIL HERE. Sorry for not providing enough info, really stupid of me. Here's the description:
BizTeen.net - Where Teens Start Businesses ----------------------------------------------------------------------
What is the problem?
It is "frustrating" and "difficult" and "time consuming" and "not free" to try to meet teens who are like minded and want to start a business togther, further more, there is no "single place" to do it.
What is the oppertunity?
The oppertunity is that there are 400 million teenagers between 15-18 of whom we believe that at least 1% (4 million) are feeling the "pain" and "frustration" of trying to find a reliable partner to earn a little extra money on the side.
What is the solution?
To create a place on the web that makes it "easy" and "free" and "fast" for teenagers to find and connect with other teenagers and join forces with them to start new business ventures.
What are the benefints for somone joining the bizteen.net team?
- Build credibility - Learn how to start a business - Develope better coding skills - Get PR and notoriety if the project succeeds
What are the CORE features?
- Find bussiness partners - Post new business ideas and get them reviewed - Browse other peoples business ideas and join thier team - Place to ask questions about business stuff - Place to hang out and chat with like minded teenagers - Place to answer questions about starting a business - Browse other teenagers profiles to see if they would be cool to meet - Post a resume about yourself and what your into
BizTeen.net - Where Teens Start Businesses ----------------------------------------------------------------------
What is the problem?
It is "frustrating" and "difficult" and "time consuming" and "not free" to try to meet teens who are like minded and want to start a business togther, further more, there is no "single place" to do it.
What is the oppertunity?
The oppertunity is that there are 400 million teenagers between 15-18 of whom we believe that at least 1% (4 million) are feeling the "pain" and "frustration" of trying to find a reliable partner to earn a little extra money on the side.
What is the solution?
To create a place on the web that makes it "easy" and "free" and "fast" for teenagers to find and connect with other teenagers and join forces with them to start new business ventures.
What are the benefints for somone joining the bizteen.net team?
- Build credibility - Learn how to start a business - Develope better coding skills - Get PR and notoriety if the project succeeds
What are the CORE features?
- Find bussiness partners - Post new business ideas and get them reviewed - Browse other peoples business ideas and join thier team - Place to ask questions about business stuff - Place to hang out and chat with like minded teenagers - Place to answer questions about starting a business - Browse other teenagers profiles to see if they would be cool to meet - Post a resume about yourself and what your into
I think it's great that you want to start a business, but I think you'll need to improve your overall skill level before you can take a serious shot at it. My advice to you, as a seventeen-year-old entrepreneur wannabe, is:
- Work on the basics. Learn to read and write fluent English (this is necessary even if English isn't your native language, at least if you want to be based in the US). Learn some programming, learn some web development, get some real world experience. Get a programming job somewhere (preferably web programming), or work on an open source project.
- Saying things like "What is the problem?", with a question mark, makes it sound like you're doing a homework assignment in high school, and that's an instant giveaway that you don't have any experience. Real business plans- in fact, real documents of any sort (see, eg., Viaweb's business plan at http://www.paulgraham.com/vwplan.html)- aren't written by going down a list of pre-prepared questions and answering them in sequence.
- The most important component of a business isn't the idea; it's the ability to adjust what you're doing, so that you can succeed even given a bunch of disasters (and there will be a bunch of disasters). This requires flexibility and determination first and foremost.
- Cut down on typos! Nobody will see what your ideas are if they're in documents full of typos (trust me on this). Online spellcheckers are readily available (http://www.spellchecker.net/spellcheck/).
- Is your figure of "400 million" worldwide? A majority of the world's population still doesn't have Internet access. A more realistic figure would be thirty million. And, why restrict yourself to teenagers? Why not everyone?
Reply to this comment if you're interested in contacting me.
- Work on the basics. Learn to read and write fluent English (this is necessary even if English isn't your native language, at least if you want to be based in the US). Learn some programming, learn some web development, get some real world experience. Get a programming job somewhere (preferably web programming), or work on an open source project.
- Saying things like "What is the problem?", with a question mark, makes it sound like you're doing a homework assignment in high school, and that's an instant giveaway that you don't have any experience. Real business plans- in fact, real documents of any sort (see, eg., Viaweb's business plan at http://www.paulgraham.com/vwplan.html)- aren't written by going down a list of pre-prepared questions and answering them in sequence.
- The most important component of a business isn't the idea; it's the ability to adjust what you're doing, so that you can succeed even given a bunch of disasters (and there will be a bunch of disasters). This requires flexibility and determination first and foremost.
- Cut down on typos! Nobody will see what your ideas are if they're in documents full of typos (trust me on this). Online spellcheckers are readily available (http://www.spellchecker.net/spellcheck/).
- Is your figure of "400 million" worldwide? A majority of the world's population still doesn't have Internet access. A more realistic figure would be thirty million. And, why restrict yourself to teenagers? Why not everyone?
Reply to this comment if you're interested in contacting me.
Just curious, are there any surveys or studies to back the 1% of 15-18 year olds are looking to start businesses? I can see it as plausible, but I wasn't that ambitious in high school :)
I mean this in a very constructive way, but you should really spell check to find the obvious typos. Especially if English is not your first language.
First impressions are important, small details like fixing typos are low-hanging fruit.
First impressions are important, small details like fixing typos are low-hanging fruit.
I'm in your target audience and at least at my school 1% seems high. (1 school is not much of a sample size though)
Ah, I meant Guys
Sorry!
It seems like you want to create a matchmaking site for entrepreneurs. In your mind, is this really the level of detail you'd want your users to provide?
I don't think that's a good idea: The social network market is mostly satiated and teen entrepreneurs are quite rare. They also tend to have rather small budgets, so it would be quite hard to get any money out of it.
so you can start a web company,software company where you don't need so much money, rather brain,
I would have thought it would be an advertisers dream to have an audience of serious business minded teenagers. Where else can you get that kind of niche audience. It's easy to advertise to teenagers on fun sites such as cracked, or myspace... but where on the web has the kind of demographic that the above idea is talking about? This kind of highly targeted niche audience is worth huge amounts of money to the right advertisers.
Emil, I know what your motivation is here, but I have to agree with some people commenting on the feasibility here. Sounds to me you have something like FairSoftware with a purely teen focus in mind. The problem with that demographic though is that they a)have no money and b) are few and far in between. I believe you have a slight disadvantage being located in Bosnia, but it wouldn't be a bad idea looking a bit closer to home for your partner.
Thanks for your input man. It sucks that you dont wanna work on Spinly though
1. What languages and tools are you using?
2. Where are you located?
3. Which features do you want to include?
2. Where are you located?
3. Which features do you want to include?
Now, I will not post the complete idea here but it's basically a social network for teen entreprenuers.