alanchavez
New Contributor
I have seen that many people keep their idea for themselves, but I do not see the point why, chances are that they're doing something that is already done by someone else, it's kinda late to reinvent the wheel, or at least that's what I think.
My idea is the following:
Create a web site to find sport partners, plain and simple.
I have found many web sites like mine while I was doing my research, but none of the web sites that I found are good enough for what I have on mind, my greatest possible competitors are the following:
Sportvite. This website is pretty cool and already offers a bunch of things, to make things even worse, they offer the service for free.
MySportsPartner. this is just another dating script, it does not really focus on the sports field, they just bought a script similar to eharmony, match, etc.. and modified it to suit their needs. Notwithstanding, it is a good quality site.
I have read a lot of books on startups and most of them concur on one point: Validate the idea before investing time or money.
That's what I'm sorta doing here, I want to find out on your opinion what do you think about my business.
Some flaws that I have seen on Sportvite's website (main competitor) is that it does not show up on the first page of search results. I have plenty of experience on the matter of SEO, so I think I could position my business on the first page quite easy, the other web sites that are there seem to be there because of antiquity and not content. If this business turns out to be viable, I'd start with paid ads in google and facebook primarily, blogging every day to create unique content, build a fanbase (They have a fanbase of about 11K people. Such fan base is not that large given the fact that sportvite has been in business since 2007).
My business would work pretty much like a dating script, with the advantage of letting people search for partners BEFORE register. Once they found someone interesting to partner up, they would need to register in order to see a PARTIAL profile, and sign up for membership before displaying methods of contact.
Sportvite seems to attract people from big cities, but they do not seem to put too much of attention on smaller cities, so I think there's a niche, besides I have seen that most of the people registered are teenagers, with a paid service is easier to alienate them, and attract a much mature and serious audience.
I would start free while building a community, and once it grows big enough (about 1K people per city), I would pull the membership off and start charging for using the service. I cannot think of a number right now because I do not have any real information to make an analysis, but I am estimating about $35 or $40 per year.
The design and development cost would be practically nothing because I am a seasoned web developer and designer. I also have read a lot on internet marketing, marketing, community management, and a couple more topics that may come in handy.
I estimate that I will have a working web site within a week from the day I start developing it, but I just don't want to start working in vain. I want to see if this is a profitable and viable idea. I take sportvite as example because they seem to be in business since 2007, and they only have a couple thousand people registered. With that time, and platform, a viable business would have much more people registered, so that makes me doubt about if starting this is really feasible or not.
What do you recommend to validate my idea? What would be a good approach?
Any help will be greatly appreciated!!
My idea is the following:
Create a web site to find sport partners, plain and simple.
I have found many web sites like mine while I was doing my research, but none of the web sites that I found are good enough for what I have on mind, my greatest possible competitors are the following:
Sportvite. This website is pretty cool and already offers a bunch of things, to make things even worse, they offer the service for free.
MySportsPartner. this is just another dating script, it does not really focus on the sports field, they just bought a script similar to eharmony, match, etc.. and modified it to suit their needs. Notwithstanding, it is a good quality site.
I have read a lot of books on startups and most of them concur on one point: Validate the idea before investing time or money.
That's what I'm sorta doing here, I want to find out on your opinion what do you think about my business.
Some flaws that I have seen on Sportvite's website (main competitor) is that it does not show up on the first page of search results. I have plenty of experience on the matter of SEO, so I think I could position my business on the first page quite easy, the other web sites that are there seem to be there because of antiquity and not content. If this business turns out to be viable, I'd start with paid ads in google and facebook primarily, blogging every day to create unique content, build a fanbase (They have a fanbase of about 11K people. Such fan base is not that large given the fact that sportvite has been in business since 2007).
My business would work pretty much like a dating script, with the advantage of letting people search for partners BEFORE register. Once they found someone interesting to partner up, they would need to register in order to see a PARTIAL profile, and sign up for membership before displaying methods of contact.
Sportvite seems to attract people from big cities, but they do not seem to put too much of attention on smaller cities, so I think there's a niche, besides I have seen that most of the people registered are teenagers, with a paid service is easier to alienate them, and attract a much mature and serious audience.
I would start free while building a community, and once it grows big enough (about 1K people per city), I would pull the membership off and start charging for using the service. I cannot think of a number right now because I do not have any real information to make an analysis, but I am estimating about $35 or $40 per year.
The design and development cost would be practically nothing because I am a seasoned web developer and designer. I also have read a lot on internet marketing, marketing, community management, and a couple more topics that may come in handy.
I estimate that I will have a working web site within a week from the day I start developing it, but I just don't want to start working in vain. I want to see if this is a profitable and viable idea. I take sportvite as example because they seem to be in business since 2007, and they only have a couple thousand people registered. With that time, and platform, a viable business would have much more people registered, so that makes me doubt about if starting this is really feasible or not.
What do you recommend to validate my idea? What would be a good approach?
Any help will be greatly appreciated!!
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