I've got a great, well thought out idea - what next

I think I have come up with by far the best application for my field. I am not even questioning that, if made, it would become the standard with the possibility to reach into many many fields. I have decent HTML capabilities and mediocre coding skills at best, but I have that passion and drive that you can't teach or develop. For some reason, I feel compelled to see this through and only if it's done correctly and to my specifications since any half-*** job would not make it off the ground.

What is my course of action? I'd need a team of programmers (with lots of AJAX and Google-like app experience), web developers, and network professionals not to mention someone to bank roll it. All i have is a dream - who do I turn to?

Venture capital? Just a guess, I have no idea really. You will probably need a very well laid-out business plan. I'd start writing a very detailed one right away. By the time you're done with it, you'll have figured out many answers to the questions you may have at this point.

Best of luck to you!

Michel
Alventis Corporation

Yeah - those darn venture capitalists are hard to come by - you know any?

You should get out and join some tech groups, such as LUG's and the like. Taking some classes at a community college is worthwhile as well. I've made a lot of contacts and a fairly decent sized group of them has offered to invest in my business ideas.

As they said,

first off draw up a business plan - if your not sure how google it for a tutorial there will be tons, or just go to your local library.

After that I would talk to a few people you trust in the field and see what they think of your idea. (You seem confident so maybe this step can be skipped but extra advice is always nice)

They might be able to give you more information on the resources you would need to see the project through.

There are lots of places who are willing to give loans out to start up businesses. Proably the bank you have your personal account in will have some sort of small business program going.

If you really think you can hit it big and the banks wont give you the kind of money you think you will need then do some research into Investment Firms in your area.

Its a rough process and you have to be prepared to be turned down alot.

All your idea are belong to us Personally if I have an idea, I dont go for it. It takes money to make money, and I am broke. Just go for it. Everything starts with an idea. Try and find some freelance coders. There are a few good ones here and there, not to mention google. If you are paying, then I might be interested to help . But thats just my 2 cents.

Alternately, you can try posting your project on SourceForge and keeping it open source. Maybe you can work with some volunteers to develop this app.

A few questions:

You mention you don't have the skills to get this off the ground, but do you have the skills necessary to make a demo? That might be the first way to go. Make a demo, and present it to people, banks VC's etc. Alternately you could present it to those that would know how to implement it, project managers coders etc. See what they think, and see if they're willing to put a stake in the earnings in return for not getting paid right out.

Alternately you could try going to one of your potential customers and say, I've got this great idea that will save you money, I'd need to work with a few developers to get this done, not only can you use it, but we can sell it to others and split the profits.

Those are my main 2 ideas... good luck.

-MBirchmeier

With very fwe exceptions, all start-ups start with a few really skilled people working in a terrible environment (one-bedroom apartment, garage, basement, etc) for long hours to get a barely functional version of their idea out into the marketplace.

Then one of three things happens:
1) People start paying them to use the barely functional version on the understanding that it will become more and more functional as time goes on
2) A VC finds the barely functional version and creates an enormous influx of cash which can be used to hire more programmers to speed up the process of going from "barely functional" to "version 1.0"
3) A company buys you up, makes the idea in-house, and retains you as employees.

Of course, there's more courses of action, but those are the three basic ones. The only question for you, really, is "where do I get the guys who make the initial barely functional product?"

The answer is usually "your friends." If you have friends that can do it, and you respect their abilities, nag them until they either take the job or take out a restraining order on you.

If you don't have friends that are capable of tackling this sort of project, look for local high-tech colleges. If there aren't any, move to a city that is conducive to creating start-ups. In the NE, these are Boston, Albany, Hartford, etc. (NOT NYC). In the South, these are North Dallas, San Antonio, New Orleans, etc. In the West and North West, you have Seattle, and most cities in southern CA that are NOT Paolo Alto. Basically what you're looking for is a growing high tech market, low property values (hence the exclusion of NYC), high tech colleges, and lacking a huge megacorp that drains all the talent (hence the exclusion of Paolo Alto and Redmond).

Post on local message boards, go to classes, hang out at the lab, find the smartest people in these cities, and odds are you'll find someone in the top 3% of the world. Pitch them your ideas, and see if any of them bite. You won't get VC without at least SOMETHING. A smoke and mirrors demo is also not as impressive as a working model. Even if the demo is much smoother and sexier than the model, if you can say the sentence "yes sir, this works ALREADY" you're gold.

Long story short, get people. Smart people. Money follows smart people. Students are more willing to work for nothing more than a leaky roof and ramen noodles, and they have no dependents, so they're your best bet.

And read pretty much everything on this page:
Paul Graham Essays

And good luck to you.

-Dan

those are some interesting articles Dan.

and him and birch are right, a prototype/demo/model of what you want to do that you can take and actually show to someone is a much better way of showing people why they should be intrested and investing in your product.

one thing to remeber;

dont only tell them how amazing and useful your product is.

tell them how it will MAKE MONEY.

as cool as your doodad is if the cash returns on it will be insignificant you will rapidly see all the bankers and VCs fade into the background.

Great, well-thought-out ideas are a dime a dozen. What is rare is the ability to take a great idea and turn it into something commercially viable. As I see it, if you want to do this yourself, you are going to have to become great at the business side of things - which might or might not be your forte (and if you are asking advice of the sort of people who typically post in a programmers forum, you might not yet have started building your business management skills). This isn't a 100% rule, but in the vast majority of cases it is the business acumen of the team, along with having a good business model, that allows success (even with mediocre products, e.g. McDonald's).

So where does this leave you? You have lots of choices. For example:
1) Develop the idea well enough that you can get some legal protection via copyrights or patents, and then market it out to companies that are looking for projects and sell it to them. Get strong legal people to do your contracts.
2) Identify some small, useful, and commercially viable aspect of your idea that you can develop with just yourself and maybe a friend or two and start building an income stream, while at the same time building your business acumen.
3) Get hired on at a large, successful company and learn the ropes as you claw your way up the corporate ladder, so to speak - keeping your idea to yourself until you have an opportunity to use it.
4) Get hired at a small but stable company where you can bring value to the effort and build the confidence of the leadership. As they learn that you always (hopefully) have good ideas and can take tasks and projects from beginning to end, you might be able to present your idea (while retaining ownership of it) and be put in charge of managing it as a Product manager, or a Project manager if that is where your strengths are.

Those are just some of the paths you could take. The dot com bust was full of people with good ideas who had no way to bring them to the market. A number of the projects brought forward at that time didn't have a chance, and a lot of them were merely "smoke and mirrors" with the purpose of making something that LOOKS viable so investors could be enticed into investing but with no intention of every actually making a profit. The real money people are hard to fool, and it was mostly the mania of the time that allowed so many bad projects to get funded. This might never happen again (for the next few years until a new batch of suckers comes along).

In other words - finding someone to bankroll you is a pipe dream unless you are strong at selling yourself, are very presentable, have all your numbers in line, have already proven yourself on a previous successful opportunity, and have at least a partial commitment of other key team members lined up.

Have fun.

I agree. Great, well thought-out standards don't make money. Business plans make money. No one owns stock in the HTML company or the TCP/IP company. Those are fantastic ideas.

If you want funding, you need to show them that you're going to make them money in the long run. The best way to do this is to get it working and show them that people with willingly give you money to use it. That means that it has to be totally unique or so good that it beats out the free competitors.

Having something up and running before you pitch your idea to the VCs is a good idea. They won't give you any money for a great idea, because they know just as well as we do that great ideas (especially standards) don't make money, viable marketable products make money. Give them something that they already recognize as a money maker, and make them know that the more money that's put into it, the more money comes out.

-Dan

well, if ur interested in doing anything free, i am starting a business called Blue Sky in July 2007. It is graphic design but i was looking for a coder who would be interested in doing anything for free. Anyways, good luck, dev shed is a good place to post about what you want. Have Fun, ~HOS~