This week has been crazy-mad-busy for me so I apologize for not posting more to the blog over the past few days.
I’m sure the Holiday season is causing most of us some extra time constraints that affect our normal routines, but in addition to my regular work loads and Holiday commitments I’ve also been involved with negotiations on a new business venture that have really taken up a lot of my time recently.
I am really excited about this new deal though, and will be talking a lot about it here over the coming weeks and months. Not wanting to jinx the deal before everything is in place and all of the dotted lines have been signed I’m only going to give some general information about it right now.
Basically, I’ve decided that my company will back a new social network startup that’s set to launch in early 2008. I never wanted to be involved in this type of site before for a lot of reasons, but what really changed my mind with this proposal was that it fills a huge missing piece in all of the existing social networks out there that directly affects how users interact and utilize the services.
There’s always risk involved with any new project, and this is certainly no different. But, it does meet all of my basic criteria for green lighting:
Is there a need for the product or service?
Can we provide both the quality and quantity necessary to meet demands?
Can it be affordably and effectively promoted?
Is it designed for future growth?
Is there a realistic plan for generating revenue?
While these 5 questions may seem broad and simplistic, the fact is that the majority of ideas and projects that I come up with, or that I’m proposed by others tend to fall short on one or more of them under just a little bit of examination. That’s been especially true of social-based or (buzz word alert) “web 2.0″ ideas I’ve had tossed at me in the recent past.
Often they’re fantastic ideas that could be (another buzz word alert) disruptive in one way or another, and in-fact disruptive potential is usually enough to get someone to put money behind them–I’ve seen several I’ve turned down get backed by others–but if I don’t have a clear “Yes” answer to each of the above questions right from the start while the project is still in the planning phase then I simply won’t get involved. Regardless of the size and scope of any project, experience has shown me that it’s too hard to try adding (or compensating for) any of these components further on in the project development.
There are folks who disagree with me on that, and actually like the challenge of trying to “problem solve” their way around one of these missing components in a big idea. That’s great for them, and some have been very successful because of it. It just isn’t how I prefer to enter projects and spend resources.
I prefer a project that has all the pieces in place at the idea stage so that focus can be placed on putting all the parts together in the most beneficial way for everyone. This way the end users hopefully get a better product or service, and we hopefully make a better return.
I mentioned that I apply these 5 questions to all of my projects regardless of size and scope, and you can do the same. They work for everything I get involved with, and I credit the fact that I do that with much of my own success. Even when building a single page niche mini-site I review the idea for it against these questions and decide whether or not to move forward with the idea based on the answers.
Side-Note: I plan to post part 4 of the Niche Network Marketing with LAMP series on Monday for those who’ve asked when I’ll be continuing with it.
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Tags: disruptive, project, social network
