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physicsteen
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31 Dec 2008, 1:17 pm

Well, my dad told me I couldn't get an internship for an independent web development company. I'm really distressed. He told me I should get a job at the local library or retail instead. He always told me, "You aren't better at websites than I am," even though I easily found out his website had already been hacked!

Lately, he seems more interested in what I can do instead of being critical. He asked me to do research about certain web subjects. He even asked me if I'd like to be employed by him. He gave me a new laptop. The only problem is that I know where the web is going, but he doesn't want to seem to listen. I told him, to be successful on the web, you must first provide a FREE service that isn't offered to gain popularity. He has a mindset that you can't offer anything for free or you'll lose your business. However, amazon, ebay, google, myspace, facebook, etc have all followed this formula.

I'm considering doing a joint-partnership with my dad but only if he'd listen. How do you "sell" an idea to a business person like my dad?



ike
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31 Dec 2008, 1:55 pm

Business people are often pretty set in their ways and generally unwilling to consider an alternative business model once they've been using one for a while. In many cases, it takes actually going out of business or nearly going out of business to convince them that their existing model isn't working. However I don't think that providing something for free is a requirement to success in future markets. It does work and the companies you've mentioned and a number of others have made it work well for them, but there are other business models that work as well.

Depending on your business in particular, I would however take a close look at something that's being called the "open social stack" and the reason why it's becoming more popular, as an alternative to something that's being called a "beautiful f*****g snowflake" (meaning elaborate and proprietary).

I've been leaning for a while now in the direction of thinking that there is going to be a lot less bespoke software in the future. That's a good part of the reason why I developed a framework for ColdFusion that does something that's been relatively common in the PHP world but virtually unheard of in the ColdFusion world, which is, creating a framework that really leverages the talents of the community, allowing sub and peer applications to be integrated via a browser-based installer, the same way you would discover and install add-ons in Firefox. There are a couple of (not very good) videos of this on the site http://on.tapogee.com


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physicsteen
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31 Dec 2008, 2:19 pm

That's very interesting. I love learning the new developments in Open Source, but I haven't heard that much about ColdFusion. Something I'm working on is a somewhat intelligent software. It collects information and will change a main component of its code to meet a certain condition the information requests. I've been having trouble using C++ and Java to make it since they have a limited syntax. ColdFusion seems to have a very powerful syntax for self-made applications. Is it possible to use ColdFusion for compilier-type applications?



ike
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31 Dec 2008, 3:29 pm

physicsteen wrote:
That's very interesting. I love learning the new developments in Open Source, but I haven't heard that much about ColdFusion. Something I'm working on is a somewhat intelligent software. It collects information and will change a main component of its code to meet a certain condition the information requests. I've been having trouble using C++ and Java to make it since they have a limited syntax. ColdFusion seems to have a very powerful syntax for self-made applications. Is it possible to use ColdFusion for compilier-type applications?


Are you talking about creating a compiler or creating a compiled application?

ColdFusion is a J2EE servlet engine, so it takes your CFML pcode and writes it to java bytecode on demand (so it only compiles each piece as needed). Of course it also depends on a webserver (I use apache httpd, just because it's easier than trying to use IIS) and you'll always need those two things, the webserver and the ColdFusion server to run any given CFML application.

However, if you're wanting to create a "stand alone" application, there are a couple of options that would allow you to use one of the open source CFML engines (Open BlueDragon or Railo) and deploy everything all together in one discrete package using their built-in web server. I haven't done this with either of them, but I'm pretty sure both of them provide methods of doing that or you can deploy the application as a Java WAR. Going the stand-alone application route OpenBD or Railo would give you the ability to run it from say a CD or a thumb drive.

Here are the sites for the respective projects.

Open BlueDragon http://www.openbluedragon.org
Railo http://www.railo.ch

Some other resources that might be helpful.

CF-Talk mailing list is on http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/
CF Meetup http://coldfusion.meetup.com - bunch of recorded presentations there
UGTV http://www.carehart.org/ugtv/ more recorded presentations from other places
Aggregated CF Blogs http://www.coldfusionbloggers.org
Common Function Libraries http://www.cflib.org - those are open source functions for different things
RIAForge http://www.riaforge.org - a bunch of open source projects for Adobe platforms

Those last three are all maintained by Ray Camden who's been working with CF for a long time and used to work for Macromedia (the company that owned it after Allaire and before Adobe).

Ray's blog is here: http://www.coldfusionjedi.com/

Feel free to contact me at [email protected]

You can also find more "experts" to answer questions on the Adobe site here:
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/all.html

I've been on that list before and I may be on it again in 2009.


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31 Dec 2008, 4:53 pm

Ok this topic seems to have gone into the technical side of webdevelopment and forgotten completely about starting a business.

I have a few questions for you.

First about your business plan.
What can you do?
How are you planning to make money?
How do you plan to start off?
How is your business idea going to make you money?


Second about your ablity.
Lets say i'm joe business man and I come to you. I want to pay you to develop a website for my business.
How much of a website could you make for me?
How good looking will the website be?
Will you be able to handle databases?
so lets say people want to sign up details or register themselfs with the company on the website.
Lets say I want a finanacal order system online can you make one work?
Would it be secure?

Really you need to tell us your ablitys. And I don't want to know a list of languages you know since thats not what will really help you in the end with a business. More being able to communicate what your knowledge can do for others.

Also on another note. How can you prove your webdevelopment ablity?
Do you have a portfolio of successful and/or appealing websites that would make me the business person or invester want to trust you with developing a website for me. (if that is your plan of course)

If am completely missing how you plan to be building a business I am sorry. Please give me some ideas on the business model you are going for. I don't think you can make another myspace not unless you have a incredibly unique idea that has not been thought of before or is a inivation to what has been done before.


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physicsteen
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31 Dec 2008, 5:17 pm

Sorry, I just got really excited. It's something I'm working on. You are right, Chaos. You are requesting proof of an ability like a regular client would. If someone sat me in front of a computer, I could do what I claim to do.

I can build security applications, complete graphics, and write raw code with websites. I specialize in interactivity and creative design. I know how to use PhotoShop enough to make pleasing graphics. I can make it extremely hard for a website to be hacked by limiting certain characters to be used in forms and blacklisting certain requests to the server. I'm good at finding bugs and future complications with code. I can't build the entire website, but I an build a large percentage of it.

I have been developing a business plan based on the research I'm collecting. My dad will have to overview and agree to what it states. My idea is a social-networking site but for business sponsors with clubs and organizations. My main revenue will be advertisements.

Thanks for the advice. It focused my attention to the things I needed to concentrate on.



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31 Dec 2008, 8:58 pm

You may want to go to vocational school to study web design. There are few programs out there, I know the vocational school I went to found that it couldn't make a profit on its web development course. Also, you need to know something about marketing to be a real web designer. The best web designers work with experienced marketers to create unique platforms for businesses. Coding is the easy part. If you're a "born coder", you may want to consider teaming up with an out of work marketing pro and starting a business together. If that's not your style, consider being a freelance computer programmer. The problem with that is, every 3-6 months is a whole new job search. I decided that I couldn't program and got a tech's certification. I'm very tactile anyway, I like working with the physical parts of a computer rather than doing 4 day code marathons fueled by Red Bull and cheap pizza.



ike
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01 Jan 2009, 12:50 am

physicsteen wrote:
I have been developing a business plan based on the research I'm collecting. My dad will have to overview and agree to what it states. My idea is a social-networking site but for business sponsors with clubs and organizations. My main revenue will be advertisements.


Over the years I've heard that ad sales is about the hardest way to make money on a web site.


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MindOfOrderedChaos
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01 Jan 2009, 1:02 am

ike wrote:
physicsteen wrote:
I have been developing a business plan based on the research I'm collecting. My dad will have to overview and agree to what it states. My idea is a social-networking site but for business sponsors with clubs and organizations. My main revenue will be advertisements.


Over the years I've heard that ad sales is about the hardest way to make money on a web site.


I agree. I was hesitant to reply to this thread again since I have some strong doubts as the practicality of her business plan.

If however you had the ablity to create a full website for small businesses, clubs and organisations. Your ablity to create a website for a lower fee than a more professional webdeveloper could get you some business. Start getting together a portfolio of work then the potential for business is there.... If you properly manage things.

I strongly suggest what ever choice you make you do your homework before you take the plunge.

One thing i always recommend to people to read is The Four Laws of Debt Free Prosperity: The Chequemate Story its a book that helps teach basic skills required to properly manage money. The better you are with money management the more likely you will keep your business out of debt...

Of course thats just one aspect.

You need to work out your market. How to attract them to you (promotion). I actually think getting the clients in the first place is the hardest part.


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01 Jan 2009, 12:17 pm

Running your own business is really really hard. I would really seriously consider if that's what you want to do.

Something like 9/10 businesses ultimately fail.


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ike
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01 Jan 2009, 3:55 pm

Kirska wrote:
Running your own business is really really hard. I would really seriously consider if that's what you want to do.

Something like 9/10 businesses ultimately fail.


There's also the fact that a lot of people who go into business for themselves fail to examine the reasons why businesses fail. If you examine what happens to businesses that fail you can develop strategies to deal with those issues.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl ... _fail.html

I wish that article states how they got that list... I'm apt to think that the list is just a list of things that random people have claimed as the reasons for failure. I'd much rather see a list that's prioritized in order of importance based on a relatively reliable statistical sampling that shows the actual dollar-impact of various decisions on the business. I have to think someone has done that.


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physicsteen
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03 Jan 2009, 2:38 pm

I wasn't planning on starting a business until a little later, but I wanted valid opinions. I'm not looking for "easy and fast ways" to make money since there doesn't seem to be such a thing in the business world. I'm researching IT niches that I have a strong chance of filling successfully.

Here is part of my business plan when it comes to aquiring revenue:

a. Designing Websites (Stage One)

I'll charge $10 per web page that I design. I'll create resources for maintaining my client's sites and update already built websites for a $55 fee. My first task for my business is to maintain an informative and well built site for consumers to go to.

b. Content and Niche Software (Stage Two)

Once I build up a portfolio, I'll turn to my clients and ask what they lack in capabilities. When enough information is gathered, I'll make a software that reflects that research. I'll put resources on a site about the software I make and sell to companies. At this point, I'll copyright
all original software. My dad will hire a law specialist to ensure we follow regulations and have protection against any possible lawsuits.

c. Advertisements (Stage Three)

Advertisements are the hardest way to make money only when the websites aren't that well known. Ads are very effective for sites with lots of traffic. That's why I won't use ads until I have a certain amount of visitors/traffic.

This part of the business plan is just a summary of what I wrote. I need some recommendations since I'm concerned about stage two. Mainly, it will be my dad running the business, and I supply intellectual property and research. I'll not start stage two until I'm out of college.



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03 Jan 2009, 3:41 pm

== Stage I ==
I wouldn't bother with a $10/page fee for websites... Your work may ultimately come out to something similar to that at the end of the day, but the whole per-page pricing thing is pretty inelegant (which I think is why most of the web design shops I've seen in recent years don't do it anymore -- it's like what was popular in '94 when the majority of people were just starting to hear about "the web"). There are a number of specific problems with it, for example, not every page takes the same amount of time, there are a lot of shared resources (CSS, graphics, headers, footers) if you do it right, which means a fair amount of the layout work can be (and probably should be) done only once, rather than for each page...

but the bigger issue I see with a per-page pricing model is that based on what I've read about cognitive science and marketing, I'm apt to think it will attract "cheap" clients who really just want to take advantage of you as a vendor. They'll call you up 24-7 demanding this change or that and then asking why you screwed it up (to which the answer will be "because you asked me to") and demanding that you put it back the way it was and that it was all your fault (even though it was actually theirs). And all the while they'll insist that they're not going to pay you another dime because you advertised $10/page. You could spend a lot of time "locking down" the terms and make the whole thing very rigidly specified with regard to what that $10 will get them... or you could just have people contact you and quote them an estimate (request for proposal or RFP), which is what most of the businesses I've seen are doing these days.

== Stage II ==
If you wait until you've got a lot of clients before you start this part of the plan, one of a couple things is likely to happen:

1. You only have clients who don't really need (or want) anything more than you've already given them - that's why they chose you in the first place
2. Clients who want other things leave for a vendor who's already providing them, so you end up with a revolving-door client base because people don't stick around long enough for you to get to stage II

== Stage III ==
Generating traffic in itself requires a plan. And the sites that do generate enough traffic to make ad-sales work as a real revenue source don't sound to me like what you're describing. What you described in stage I-II sound like offering a service to businesses -- sites that are making money on advertising like eBay and MySpace aren't in the business segment, they're in the consumer segment. The people who see the ads on MySpace are individuals who're coming for the freebies. But... in order to get to that point, MySpace had to have enough outlay of cash to create a GIGANTIC server farm to run the site. And business owners will usually avoid paying for a website with ads on it unless they're getting the ad revenue themselves... and even then, revenue-sharing the ads is likely also to turn away many if not most business owners as well.

========

I'm not saying that any of these things are impossible, all I'm saying is that, given this description, I see a lot of potential problems and I'm not really seeing anything in the description of the business plan that would differentiate it from the services offered by other vendors and make it more attractive to the clients.

My own strategy aside from creating a reputation for myself and fostering some open source projects, has been to look for an application that I know a lot of people need and for that matter even pay for already. I looked at what software other vendors had created to fill the need and I started working on an application that would fill the same need but do a better job than the competition.


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07 Jan 2009, 6:52 am

I have read articles in magazines like Business Week, and you may be able to google it or look in that red book in the library (totally forget the name of it) to find the articles, but they are about the new market of your basic myspacers. I remember reading one that went into an in depth psychological analysis of that group's consumer behavior and how tech savvy they are.

There are websites that offer free advice on the content of a business plan. This is important if you are ever going to apply for a bank loan, but it is also important for you to think about all those details as an owner. What those sites tell you is a guide as there is no wrong or right business plans as much as effective and ineffective ones. What the websites don't tell you that you need to consider is an exit plan such as when to shut down if things go wrong and a plan to liquidate your assets to cover liabilities, etc.

In the marketing section of your business plan, you should establish your target market. In your case of Stage III, you will probably have a target readership as well. Sounds to me your father or yourself, one of you two, do not understand your target readership. So, I would first suggest defining that target whether they be senior citizens, business employees, young moms, etc. If you provide a service of information where a corporation may pay the subscription costs for a key employee, or if you were providing access to information necessary for college students to use in research (like an online library), or something like that, then charging your viewership would make a little more sense than if you were to focus on something like a wrongplanet forum or a myspace/facebook network.

When you do establish your target readership and market, what you want to do is research the demographics and psychographics. It's hard to get recent information on that for free as most places charge a pretty penny for that knowledge, but you can get older data out of books at the library and some websites.

You know what would be neat? An internet chamber of commerce. If there is already one, I've never heard of it, so they aren't doing it right. If you or anyone else reading this use that idea and make a million, I am a big fan of wrong planet, St. Jude's Hospital, and the Tiger Foundation. I also like cancer research, but NOT a fan of the American Cancer Society although their Relay for Life is a great marketing tool. I'm sure you could even come up with an internet relay for life, maybe call it a Net for Life (oooh, that's catchy).

Also for web design, I'd charge hourly like an attorney or accountant does. Give yourself a business name and logo and treat it like it is a big business in the way you appear. I know a guy in high school (started this out in junior high mind you) who owns a small computer repair company, and you wouldn't know he's still in high school by looking in the yellow pages. Actually, when my laptop broke, my insurance company had no idea he was in high school when he wrote the letter stating it couldn't be repaired. He also charges hourly, but he offers a deal of a flat rate fee to clean out the spyware, viruses, etc. I think I had a cousin who did the same thing in college and was pretty successful with computer repair. If you can repair computers, I'd go that route because some companies see websites as a luxury item but computer repair is a necessity and can offer a larger customer base as you'd get regular people and companies as clients. Word of mouth is also the best advertising. Also, I found the best networking to be going to the bars that all the business managers and owners go to, usually during happy hour, and I often drank soda because I, unlike those guys, was working. They usually switch bars, but go after ones with most expensive dinner menus to start. Expensive hotels are good as well (Adams Mark I believe to be the best if you got one).

If you can take some business classes as electives for your degree, I highly recommend it. I would highly suggest for small business any small business courses your college may offer (some offer them, some don't, but the Small Business Association also offers some for free as well) and I suggest General Business, Intro to Marketing, and Accounting 1. If you don't want to take the class on Marketing, get the book Marketing for Dummies or The Idiots Guide to Marketing to learn about Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Very useful information when developing business plans. You want Accounting 1 because many businesses fail because they got a great idea, great management, but lousy financial management. You don't need ACCT 2 as it is big public corporations focused. But ACCT 1 will show you the basics of small business accounting, and it just mainly shows debits and credits, so pay attention to it in a business owner mind frame to learn about how every transaction affects your net worth and profit. You may find that same type of information in Dummies and IDiots Guide books. Investing, Saving, and asset protection are good topics to learn more about.

I am a firm believer that the idea doesn't matter as much as how you use it. Businesses don't fail because of the economy. They fail because they weren't run well to begin with, and when the economy goes sour, those are the ones that need the bail out. Look at USAA, they are a bank running strong, but they know how to run a business right. AIG (similar to USAA) doesn't know what they are doing when it comes to making money, but they are awefully good at wasting money hence all the bailouts. You can provide the most awesome product in the world, but it won't sell if you don't know how to market the product, and you won't make money if you don't know how to manage it. Of course, there's such thing as dumb luck, but if you study most of your big corporations, it was a natural know how on marketing, money management, and customer service. Good bios to research are Sam Walton, Famous Amos, and the author of Harry Potter.

Sorry so long. Hope it helps.



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07 Jan 2009, 11:37 am

most business people are very extroverted. If you are partnered with your dad though, it might be ok. Hopefully he won't screw you over badly since you are his own child.