great point. too bad more people don't realize that. money is only a representation of value. the reason we had a recession is too may people were focused on the leverage method, rather than creating more value.
I don't mean open-source in it's most literal form. I'm referring to just changing my project to a more open project, rather than completely private. In other words, letting anybody with the relevant qualifications to work on it for their own pleasure, experience, etc.
Because the project is my idea and I have a vision for it, I wouldn't want to somehow give up control over its direction. I'm just not against letting more people work on it who have the skills and are willing, rather than an extremely controlled tight circle of developers. In other words, it would be open-source, but with somewhat of a hierarchy and direction.
Luckily Google hasn't quite yet nailed what I'm trying to do with my startup. If you want to contribute to a project in this space that could potentially transform the way we interact with businesses, contact me at [email protected].
It would help if you know PHP. I'm more business-minded than technical. I already have a prototype built and am willing to work out an equity deal if you are interested. Time is of the essence, as it's only a matter of time before somebody wakes up to what I'm doing. This is a huge opportunity, but I don't have the technical skills myself to get the project off the ground.
Sorry for spamming, but I don't know where else to go to find quality programmers who have the same entrepreneurial spirit as me.
True. And, if possible, eventually expanding into the original segment is always a possibility. It's all about finding an untapped niche or one that needs some new tapping.
Thanks for that. It was a real eye-opener. I knew that China's debt stake was less than everybody complains about, but I didn't know the exact numbers. Sometimes we need a little dose of perspective.
They're not exactly hiding that. We're all aware that those two companies, along with others, collect our information and generally use it to promote relevant products or what their algorithm's believe we want to see.
Amazon, Netflix, and others all do it blatantly. It's not a conspiracy, just something that originally had a good intent (and still does), but is not yet developed enough to provide a well-rounded stream of information.
I would assess the strength and execution of your competitor's product, then decide whether you think you can build a better product. Google didn't quit building a search engine because Yahoo beat them to it. They just figured out a better way to do it. Depending on the potential size of your market, there may be room for multiple companies, even if you do come to market second.
On the other hand, one month's work is not very much and if you have another great idea in a more promising market, I would say get working on that and try to make sure you get there first. But, like I said, it's not when you launch, it's how your product compares with competitors. Just my $0.02.
I couldn't reply to your last post, so I'm replying directly above it.
That's a good idea. I've thought of that, but 1. I'm not a very outgoing person and don't know if I would be great at pitching an idea and 2. It seems that students wouldn't bring the quality that professional programmers do. That's definitely an option though. Thanks.
To sharpen the analogy, maybe each type of business is like a certain type of car or sport. You should learn the relevant skills before diving in. Driving a Geo is different than driving a Ferrari, but they're still both cars.
I've come to that conclusion that I can't keep my idea a total secret, otherwise it will never see the light of day. At first I was entirely vaulted. As for the site, it's a social network with a focus on businesses rather than people. I've spent countless hours drawing up the blueprint, so there are literally over fifty other services that I believe the site could incorporate which all have a huge potential upside. It's very frustrating to have all these ideas but not know how to implement them. I've already spent thousands of dollars on developers, but I don't want to go completely broke.
Hi Frank, That gives me more piece of mind. I've only given three programmers FTP access, though I've since restricted them. I've also explained to them that I'll be willing to rehire them once I can afford it, so that should give them more of an incentive to wait, rather than try to build their own versions. Also, I interviewed the programmers first and felt that they were trustworthy (though you never know for sure). I'm glad to hear that you've never encountered programmers stealing ideas.
Being of high moral integrity myself (in my opinion), I wouldn't expect someone even closely like-minded to steal my idea, but I feel like my site has such high potential that it may be one of those things that even someone with moral integrity can't resist stealing.
By the way, is there anywhere that I can find developers to build my site who would accept a stake in the company rather than cash?
That's exactly what it is. They offered a free 30 day trial and I figured it couldn't hurt to try it out, but now I think that they're more for small businesses who don't need much more than a static HTML page.
Drupal and/or Wordpress wouldn't be able to do what I need. My site is relatively complicated and I already have a pretty substantial amount written in PHP.