[geeklog-devel] Geeklog Service offering

[Tom Willett]

I sometimes wonder why it seems that only Blaine and I respond to things 
like this.  At first I thought oh well we are just a couple of vain old men 
who like to impose our beliefs on others.  ;)  But then I realized, hell, I 
have always been this way!  So here goes again and after this I will shut up.

> Tony Bibbs wrote
> Here are some initial thoughts I had on how to start his up.  First, there 
> is no really need to go all gung-ho until we prove there is a market for 
> this sort of stuff.  So our first goal should be to establish the fact 
> tehre is need for services around GL.
>

Agreed -- For my last startup I contacted a local State College Business 
School and let one of the business classes take my initial thoughts and us 
it as a class project developing a business plan and doing a marketing 
survey.  I only came away from that experience with one good idea, but that 
one idea saved me about $20,000 and untold headaches.  I imagine that any 
business school would jump on the chance to do the same for a high-tech 
service oriented business like this.

> 
> To do that I propose we do something simple like set-up one bank account 
> in which all $$ will initially go into.  Then we need to figure out how 
> much revenue a month we think we need before we are convinced there is a 
> need for this and that we need to go to the next level.  Let's call that 
> magic number $X/month.
> 
> Until we reach our goal of $X/month, all money stays in the account.  When 
> we hit that goal we can then take what is in the account to pay for things 
> we may need (drafts of contracts, lawyer time to set up a corporation, 
> etc).  I say we prime the pump and just dump it all back into what we are 
> trying to do. From that point on we can start dividing up revenue in a way 
> that rewards people based on time spent and goals accomplished (i.e. more 
> like a 'real' business).
> 

Once again Agreed.  It is painful to not reap the fruit of you labor at 
first but essential.  You either have to do something like this to fund a 
startup or borrow money or put in some of your own (yuk).  And you need to 
be realistic, do not expect it to happen in two or three months.

And another painful thought, especially in this dot-com boom and bust world, 
you better plan on not getting any money out of the company for at least a 
year, probably more.  So don't quit your day job.  The only way people got 
rich in the past dot-com bubble was by taking other peoples money.

--
Tom Willett
tomw at pigstye.net