Comments on: A $20,000 Proof of Concept

By: Ray Dotson

Ray Dotson — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 11:58:09 +0000

I’m coming in late to the conversation, but I find the whole concept to be fascinating. I’ve heard of other sites being VC-funded, of course, but this seems to be slightly different take.

I would be concerned about the amount of money involved myself. There’s going to be a temptation to overspend, a la the dotcom bubble. I’ll be watching to see how things work for you. Good luck!

By: gr3cko

gr3cko — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 10:43:42 +0000

Ryan, this is certainly an interesting concept. There remains masses of scope online to make serious returns (15% of investment seems fairly conservative). Study web 2.0 sites and think niches. A wide driftnet approach loses interest in users.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 16:54:38 +0000

The ante has been upped to $60,000. We are also considering how we can involve the College Startup readership. Stay tuned.

By: David Krug

David Krug — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 04:34:51 +0000

hahaha now that’s funny.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 04:33:25 +0000

9rules? I think the point of this is to make money

By: David Krug

David Krug — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 19:41:51 +0000

Jamsi,
Interestingly enough 9rules actually went with option number two IMO investing time and money in Fine Fools, before deciding that wasnt worth their time. Before that they had established BusinessLogs another Option 2 scenario, thirdly they continue down that path with BusinessLogs, and ScrivsTyme.

Need I say more about Digg, with their Online TV Network?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:49:54 +0000

Jamsi,
Good ideas are hard to come by. Good ideas that are properly executed are even harder to come by. For every Digg, Delicious, etc. there are hundreds of failures.

The reason for considering option 3 is that two of the desiderata of this project are *repeatability* and *reliability* – trying to duplicate Digg, Delicous, etc. would be tantamount to gambling.

By: Jamsi

Jamsi — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 04:01:09 +0000

Okay I’m going to take a different stance here. I’m suprissed a few of you are mentioning option 3 .. Think about option 1 a little. All the best sites on the web went with option 1. Digg? Delicious? 9rules? They all focused on making a killer site and as long as you have the idea .. a unique idea that will break barriers .. option 1 is all you need!!

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:08:39 +0000

Ben,
Possibility is one thing. But the real question has to do with reliability of return. Stock equities predictably return between 8-15% per year, averaged out over 10 year periods. So that’s what you should expect if you are investing in the stock market.

Making money by playing poker …well it’s not reliable, and even if you’re great, the level of control you have over your ability to succeed is too low.

The question of interest is whether there is a systematic way (reliable and repeatable) to return a consistent 15+% per year by investing directly in web content.

By: HART (1-800-HART)

HART (1-800-HART) — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 12:28:09 +0000

Option #3 (wide scale diversification) sounds ‘safe’ .. since it’s really not your money and you can’t risk losing the entire stake on one lousy bet. However, I think I would lean towards Option #2. You have to focus on the end game, being that 5-figure bonus and reaching your goal. Maybe once you have proven success on a few projects, you can take your bonus and expand on more projects – or obtain other investors to back future and larger projects.

Besides .. flipping sites trying to earn 5% sounds nice, but can you keep that up? And, what if you have to start working maintaining the sites before flipping? (painting, renovating, maintaining etc just like any property).. you will spread yourself thin having too many projects on the go.

Just my 2cents. Regardless, it’s an interesting venture to watch. I hope you keep everyone informed of the good and the bad.