General Business: Over analytical
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Does anyone else have this problem when going through ideas? I have a tendency to come up with what I perceive to be good ideas (with others agreeing), but then I focus only on the bad aspects of why it wouldn't work. I get to the point that I convince myself that the idea is a failure waiting to happen -- usually in time to see someone else doing the same exact thing (and being successful at it).
I have been thinking about it, and I'm sure I would have passed up an idea like eBay (if it were the mid 90's prior to their founding). There are so many things that I can find wrong with the concept and as to why it shouldn't have worked... Everything from the lack of traffic in the beginning, to buyers having to wait 7 days to see if they are actually getting their item, all the way to fraud. That's just how over-analytical I can be, and I think I pass up a lot of good ideas because of it.
I guess it's time to stop thinking about things and just do them. My new rule is "build... release... refine..."
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For people that shoot down all of their ideas, they're their own devil's advocate. For people that have killed a few ideas, but can look back and see that they wouldn't have been successful or mainly, you wouldn't have enjoyed them, that's your personal filter.
When I get into devil's advocate mode 9 times out of 10 it's because I'm frustrated or the environment around me is negative. If you're in a bad mood or really tired, that's not the ideal time to make the final decision on whether or not you proceed with a business idea.
There are a few different ways you can quickly determine whether or not you should proceed.
1) Ask complete strangers, not your family, in a non-biased manner, what they think about your big idea.
2) Set an alloted amount of time (1-4 hours) to research the elements of the idea, contact people that might affect it, get quotes, etc...
3) Ask yourself two questions, 1) Is this something that I would buy or use myself? 2) Is the process of creating and maintaining this product/service something I'll truly enjoy?
Hope that helps!
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Good advice!
It's not that I don't like my overall concept, it's just that I need to find a good niche to apply it to. Basically, I'm taking the "wanted ads" and "reverse auction" concept and see what it can be applied to in order to enhance a market (i.e. connecting "sellers" to defined "buyers").
For example, wanted ads aren't really popular for "items" (as far as I can tell) with impulse shoppers - eBay is much easier to navigate through and quickly find what you need. However, "wanted ads" would be much easier for the sellers because they could easily setup feeds to see who is interested in their product.
So, my dilemma is trying to find out what market would benefit the most from that type of "reverse" setup (because there are quite a few of them). So far, my list includes markets such as real-estate, job recruiters, advertising (across all mediums), and the service industry.
Sure those markets might be saturated, but reversing the way things are done is a good way to be disruptive. On the business model front, I plan on using CPA or "pay for performance", which is leaps and bounds ahead of sites like Monster.com or ForSaleByOwner.com
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It sounds interesting... I'd focus outside the traditional (and exploited) areas and look for new opportunities. One such opportunity may be within certain types of manufacturing parts and plants. I don't know much about it, but I've heard a bit about how middlemen in manufacturing still make a decent margin just by running the logistics between buyer and seller/user. Making that go online seems like a no brainer. Open it up Web 2.0 style, and I think you've got a killer app.
Another it to take a look at what JobLoft is doing in retail jobs in Canada and apply that in the States and beyond before they get big. They had a chance to take on some serious angel funding (from 5 of the richest Canadians) and blew it (follow the blog and look for clips of it on YouTube - very dramatic).
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The real-estate market doesn't look too bad. People seeking a home would just create a listing, and sellers would be able to directly submit their offer to those people. It's free for the home-seekers, and would probably cost something like $0.05 per offer on the seller side (to weed out spam). The real money would be made when a buyer indicates interest in what the seller is offering.
I'm also liking the prospects in the job market, but not nearly as much as the real-estate market. It would probably end up as a bank of users looking for jobs, and recruiters can come in and "offer" jobs - again, the job recruiter would only pay if the user expresses interest in that job offering.
Finally, online advertising is definitely becoming saturated, but I still like the idea of flipping the AdBrite model... Instead of websites seeking ads, the advertisers would create a listing specifying their demographics and price range. Websites (or other ad distributors) could simply search through and offer the advertisers their position and price with a reverse auction model.
I don't know much about middlemen within manufacturing, so I probably couldn't created anything badass in that department. Any of the above ideas work fine for me, and I'd be happy to just generate a little bit of income (not looking to get rich, but definitely wouldn't complain lol).
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I'm actually the complete opposite - I have a tendency to talk to family and friends and when they give an idea the "go", I start to wonder that they're blowing smoke and that I'm being cocky and overly-positive and "why hasn't any one else thought of this - maybe because its a bad idea" starts to float around in my head.
AND THEN, my partner and I get over it and but we get scared when we start talking to programmers about the development costs because neither of us are web developers.
AND THEN, my partner loses focus and finds something else she's interested in - and I Get frustrated.
AND THEN we drop an idea and "pursuit" the next only for the cycle to continue.
The good news is: the idea we've got right now - we seem to keep coming back to it.
If only we could move forward...man have I said that before. :sigh:
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Okay, we're applying the concept to general wanted ads (includes real-estate). There are over 1.5 million wanted ads posted each year on Craigslist and various other sites (including WantItNow on eBay). I really want to expand on this and create a dedicated service for that niche by creating a slick UI with some pretty cool (but very simple) features.
At first I was afraid the market might be too narrow or non-existent (people can just find stuff on eBay), but it's quite apparent that there is in fact a segment of the market that 1) knows what they want, 2) Would rather have the sellers come to them (and haggle), and 3) would like sellers to competitively bid down the price.
Posting a wanted ad will be a quick process, and the general format will allow sellers to quickly create an offer in a competitive reverse-auction type of format. As a seller on eBay, this would be awesome (who doesn't want to know when a buyer is interested in their product)... Setting up an RSS feed for specific items and then getting notified when someone wants it is just plain cool.
Categorization of items will be completely based on the users in a drill-down tag format (not too unlike http://www.gojobby.com). I've purchased the domain at http://www.wantsy.com so keep an eye out.
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