We have all had an idea for a website or web business that we felt was a killer idea. Some of us decide to turn that idea into a multi million dollar business (Google, Facebook, Flickr, Myspace), and the majority of us forget about it and then regret it later.
But in between these two ends of the spectrum is something far worse… it is the people that think of an idea, create the website, and then realise that the idea has already been done many times, and success is almost impossible.
At Midascode we get a lot these cases, people contact us with an online auction website they spent $10,000 on, and they then realised that there was a little thing called eBay, so their site never got off the ground. To make matters worse, they often want to sell for more than $10,000 to “cover the development costs”.
This angers and upsets me in equal measure. I don’t like to see people fail, I certainly don’t like to see them lose money, but at the same time, it is clear that these people have rushed into creating their website without doing any research.
Which begs the question: should development companies have the morals and good faith to tell such clients that they are wasting $10,000?
It is easy for us to laugh and joke about people who want to create a search engine for $500 to compete with Google, or a $10,000 site to compete with eBay, but many of you have spent a lot of time on the net, you know the rules, and the unwritten rules, you know what works and what fails, you know what adverts not to click, and you know not to show your willy via webcam to a guy called KinkyJoe (ok, perhaps that was just me then?!?)…. but remember that each and every day there are thousands of people who are using the Internet for the very first time, these people don’t know the rules and unwritten rules, they barely now how to load the Internet browser.
Perhaps there should be a one year buffer period, where nobody is allowed to create a website or web business until they have been online 12 months.
For instance, take my mother…. no, please… take her!
She started using the net recently, using the IM username: Deans.Mum (bless)
The other day she contacted me and was furious about the fact that on the net, people pretend you have won things, but really, they say it to every visitor. I laughed at this because I have had 10 years of seeing such banners and pop-ups, but she hasn’t, and from time to time we have to remember that we were just as naive when we started online.
We all make mistakes, for me, “mistake” is just another word for “experience”, but until you have got your Internet “experience”, it may be best not to invest $10,000 into an idea that has had no market research, and what’s more, if you do make this big mistake, please don’t use us as your “get out of jail free card”, we can get the same $10,000 site developed for $2,000 and we are “experienced” enough to know that it would take millions of dollars in promotion to launch an online auction site these days.
Rant over.
For all of the people reading this who are new to the Internet, I would like to share one vital piece of information with you, one nugget of info that will change your lives:
****Congratulations, you are the 1 millionth visitor, you have won a prize, please send $100 to INeedMoreInternetExperienceBeforeISpent10kOnMyIdea @midascode.co.uk to collect your cash.****
