Posted on Wednesday, 13th August 2008 by Jeff
“Joe has an exciting internet idea that he’s sure will make him an internet millionaire. He plans on creating a website similar to myspace except it’s primary purpose is for car mechanics. He calculates that there are approximately 2 million car mechanics in this world which he thinks is a huge market. Since Joe doesn’t know how to design a website he decides to find somebody who can make his website for him. He goes to a professional web designer and finds out that it will cost him $5,000 to create his website. Since he believes he’s going to make millions he dives into his life savings and pays the designer upfront. After weeks of waiting his website finally gets finished. He sets his website up on a $300 a month dedicated server because his web designer advises him that it’s the best solution for busy websites. Joe feels that his dream is finally coming to life and all he has to do is get people to join his website. After some research into SEO he properly optimizes his website and submits it to the search engines. He writes about 20 articles on being a car mechanic and submits them to a few article directories. He also joins some car mechanic forums and includes the link to his website in his signature. Joe feels that he’s done everything he needs to do and all he has to do is lay back and wait for people to join. Within a month Joe has managed to get 1,300 unique visitors to his website but only 5 members have joined. He also hasn’t earned a single penny off his website. Since free marketing isn’t producing the results Joe wants he decides to try his hands at paid marketing. He signs up for a Google Adwords account and sets his bid to about $.30 a click. After about $50 in clicks he only gets 1 sign-up and realizes that paid marketing isn’t working out either. He’s frustrated and confused and feels that he’s done everything he can do to get his website to work. Instead of continuing with his website and losing more money he decides to put his website for sale on Ebay to split his losses. Since his website is custom it sells for $2300 which is about $2700 less than he paid for it. He also needs to factor in the $600 he spent for hosting his website on a dedicated server. Joe feels terrible because he worked really hard for the money he invested into his website. From then on Joe never looks back at the money he lost, but never tries his hand at internet business ever again.”
Why do you think Joe’s idea didn’t work out? Was it the idea itself or was it simply Joe’s failure to not have a good marketing plan ahead of time? I think it’s a little mixture of both. Most people get so excited about their internet idea that they fail to see the whole picture. First of all, Joe failed to answer the question “Why?”. Why would anyone want to join his website? Was it to help car mechanics network and share ideas? Or was it simply a random niche he took from a website that already existed? Even if your idea is unique, if it doesn’t have a useful purpose that isn’t already covered by another website then chances are you’re wasting your time. It doesn’t matter how many visitors you get to your website because most of them won’t stick around. Another thing he failed to see is that big websites like myspace have huge marketing budgets. This includes hiring experts to help you out. Joe decided to take marketing into his own hands even though he was entirely new to the subject. In order to run a website that is comparable to big internet websites, you need to treat it like a big company and not as a “one-person” small business. This includes getting huge loans from investors and hiring a full staff. If you feel this is a little too much for you to handle then your best bet is to go for a smaller and more guaranteed idea.
Posted in Ideas | Comments (1)
August 13th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Great Post!!!
I agree that too many internet business owners fail because proper planning. Our company finds a providing a short business plan template saves customers money & time.