How to test your website idea for profitability with little development time
I hated English class –almost always got nailed on papers for plagiarism. And I know you’re not supposed to start a letter or a blog post with an apology, but hey this isn’t English class so I can do whatever I want. Besides I started this post with a slam on English class –so there.
Sorry I haven’t posted in a month, I have been very busy. I am still working with a group here locally on a new jobs site called ENG.com which is taking up some of my time and I am trying to finish up the initial draft application for Alliteration Plus. Anyway…
What if you have an idea which I usually do, but you are totally booked like the list I mentioned above plus a few other things that I didn’t mention. Wouldn’t it be nice to see if your idea had any merit?
Depending on the site you are thinking of building it may take you a couple hundred hours in development time, and then you have to hire out someone to skin it and make the site pretty for you. Not a lot of time there, but there is money spent –unless you skin it yourself which takes even more time. I suck at graphics and I rarely come up with a color palette that looks good –so I don’t do this anymore.
Building a new website like this is a waste of time especially since you have no idea if the site will work or not. Now you may think well if I don’t build it first class and pretty then no one will use it. Not true there were plenty of sites out there that sucked and they made it. In fact even after they made it the sites overall functional flow and look just blew. But it satisfied a need that people had and provided value –so they overlooked the obvious flaws. (I knew some girls like that –you know had obvious flaws but they satisfied a need. Just kidding –or am I?) So my point is that a simple website that performs the unique functions that separate this site from another is all you need to test your idea and determine the sites potential.
So knowing that doesn’t it make a lot more sense to build a web site as plain Jane as possible and get it online? Make it functional and get some backlinks to it, perform some SEO on it and then go back to your other projects. Don’t wait for the result or you will be waiting a while. But at least this way the concept application or website is up there and if it works it works and people will come and do whatever they are suppose to do on that site. As your member base grows you will see your profits grow. Then you can take “new” money and use it to put a face-lift on that web site.
What have you accomplished? Two things: you built a new website quickly, usually in under a week and you have had your web site tested by the market. They will decide whether it’s a good idea or not. If the market likes it, upgrade and optimize it. Then move on to the next one.
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Interesting concept. The problem with it is that if you follow this method and the idea fails you have no idea if it failed because it was a bad idea or if it failed because the of design and or bug issues.
Let’s face it, if you throw up some barely functioning patchwork script that looks like a child designed it your idea might just fail because your execution was bad. On the other hand if you take your time and, within reason, produce a visually attractive, WORKING site that same idea just might have worked.
Thanks..
I can agree with your first point about not knowing exactly how your idea may have failed. You would have to have a way to determine why it failed or you would be just shooting in the dark.
Your second point is true. You would have to have a functional site. I never said not to have one. But your site doesn’t need to have extended “nice-to-have” functionality in order to test the concept.
Your third point is exactly the opposite of what I just said in the post above. It sounds like you would like to take your time and build the next Z-Killer web site with all the trimmings. The main point I was driving at was at getting the site up fast so that the market can test it. And then you can determine if you have a viable product.
Still you brought up a very good point. One which could easily fill several blog posts. The question of, “Why did my website idea fail” is a good one. What ways can that be tracked and how can we fix those problems once we determine what they are?
Good discussion. Thanks.