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Start-up Resources for New Entrepreneurs

Posted In For Profit Business, Inspiration, Resources February 3rd, 2012 by Bill Dotson Tags: ,

This morning, we received questions from a person who wishes to start a new business and build it around a website or application. We’ve received requests like this in the past and they can eat up a lot of time if the person (prospect) doesn’t really have a firm grip on what it takes to build a business and/or web application. We’ve all heard stories of how popular sites were built for pennies, right?

Reality is a bit different.

Building the website or web application is only one part of your business. You need to market it, protect it, sell, manage, etc…

We ask if there is a business plan, website diagram, etc… and often there isn’t one. This planning is one of the toughest parts of starting a business. Time, energy, and more have to be in plentiful supply in order to do it correctly.

If you know of someone interested in starting a business or building a business around a website/application, check out these links:

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2012/01/how-to-create-an-enchanting-financial-forecast-officeandguyk.html

http://www.openforum.com/articles/how-to-create-an-enchanting-pitch

http://www.openforum.com/articles/how-to-create-an-enchanting-business-plan

You can suggest http://www.startupkentucky.com/ if the person is in KY, too. Other states may have similar programs.

If the person has a plan, diagram, etc, we offer a half-day planning & consulting session. It can be brutal. Totally worth it though because it’s less stressful and a lot less expensive to buy a half-day from us and get years of experience than to start building an application/business and head down the wrong path. We spoke with one entrepreneur recently who went down the wrong path, spent tens of thousands, and now only has the start of a web application. There was no plan for maintenance, marketing, or customer support.

All this being said, there are some great questions revolving around, “What would it cost to build a site like X?” over at Quora. The comments are educational. And if you are wondering what it costs to build an iPhone/iPad app, Kent Nguyen has great insight.

Good luck getting started on your company!