/biz/ - Business & Finance

[Anonymous No.746983]

I'm 18, starting college, and I'm planning on starting a small business as a side project. Give some pointers guys.

Also general startup thread.

>pic pretty much unrelated

[Anonymous No.746986]

what will your business do

[Anonymous No.746988]

>>746986
A friend and I were planning on doing either something in advertising or software development.

[Anonymous No.747092]

I'm going to start a multi-media entertainment production conglomerate. I'm going to lease a several thousand sq/ft warehouse. My business partner and I are going to run it. We're looking for a hot girl to be our secretary and an in house DJ now actually.

[Anonymous No.747145]

>>747092
I am neither of those

[Anonymous No.747154]

>>747092
I'm a generally well-received DJ located in the midwest. Where are you at?

[Anonymous No.747163]

>>746988
>how are you financing this?
>how is going to keep track of the books?
>have you thought this through?
>do you know what you are doing?
>don't listen to me, I ask these questions and use them as excuses that I will fail if I try
Good for you OP, and good luck

[Anonymous No.747239]

I dunno about you people but I bought a printer and start a printing business in the dormitory

[Anonymous No.747265]

>>746988
Either way, you're going to have to prove you know what you're doing with a resume and examples.
I'm not knocking you by any means, just be aware, you need substance.

[Anonymous No.747282]

>>746983
Any business that gets even semi serious will require 100% of your attention

[Anonymous No.747554]

>>747092

[Anonymous No.747781]

Marketing, Marketing and
MARKETING.

Marketing is an investment, anything else is an expense

[Anonymous No.747808]

Idiot, you didn't even specify the related niche or field of your startup, no one can give you any sensible answers. But I will try to help anyways.

Assuming your product is decent and not complete shit, your main priority is going to be obtaining customers/leads/clients, whatever type of consumer you'll have because you didn't get ANY fucking detailed in your OP.

This is the win or lose for your company. I found that smart marketing is 90% of the game. Obviously, there are many verticals and routes to take in options of marketing. I'll assume you're going down a tech niche (again you didn't mention fuck shit in OP), and in that case digital marketing will be the best.

SEO is your first line of business. Organically ranking for buying keywords on G and B should be your long term focus. Research SEO companies WELL before choosing. I run an SEO company in my city, in fact I rank #1 for the 3rd largest city in Florida for SEO [city]. I know the bullshit these SEO companies pull, be vigilant.

Depending on your product, CPC and CPM ads might be a viable choice. Facebook, Twitter (shit is fucking trash until their new update in a few months I believe), Bing, and other avenues are a great avenue. Picking which area obviously depends on your fucking niche, which you FAILED to point out in OP.

If you think I helped, add skype alex.marx1337 if you'd like to discuss further.

[Anonymous No.747867]

>>747808
>add skype alex.marx1337
>alex.marx1337
>1337
so you send bots as traffic m8?

[Anonymous No.747904]

>>746983
dont stop trying even if it fails.
instagram was originally a text website that used few pictures. the reverse is successful after they failed the first time

[Anonymous No.747910]

>>747092

[Anonymous No.747980]

In same position as OP, but a year older and a year into college. I have web skills (Flask, Django + frontend trio), but no business idea or plan. I've read fastlane millionaire and I kind of get the whole product thing, but I have no business or monetization sense.

Where can I find a business side business partner who isn't "Make the next facebook and give me 50% because I gave you the idea".

[Anonymous No.747993]

>>747980

"Business side" cofounder here. Just closed a 500k seed round with convertible debt at 25% discount and 5M cap.

You are severely overestimating your usefulness. Do you even have a portfolio?

You're not Zuck - you're a fucking shit tier Raji from India that costs 20x as much to bring on board.

What have you accomplished to warrant acting like an entitled dick that actually thinks they deserve more than 50% of your next venture?

Oh, that's right - fucking nothing.

Let the reality set in - you aren't useful, despite whatever special snowflake lies you were told about studying CS.

[Anonymous No.747997]

>>747993
I think he was assuming he would be the sole person implementing the business idea in which case 50 percent would be a joke

[Anonymous No.748004]

>>747997

If the "business side" of your venture requires so little work that it doesn't even qualify as "implementing the business idea" (protip: unless you're trying to release a shit-tier app, it is far more work than you comprehend) then why can you not do it yourself?

Serious question by the way.

[Anonymous No.748005]

>>747993
I never said I was a special snowflake. I just said I was a code monkey who knows there's shit beyond being a wage slave, which the majority of code monkey's don't.

>You're asking this cuz your a code monkey with no originality

I'm asking this because I can't create a product without having some sentimentality bullshit over it and an over attachment of my product thus I can't monetize. Last year I had a site with average of 90k visitors per month, but couldn't even bring myself to put ads on it. Eventually it died out because I couldn't maintain the servers that cost to keep it up.

I can build a user-base and SEO, I just can't monetize because I end up caring too much about the user base I worked to create to go all jewish on them.

>Do you even have a portfolio

yes, if you are a freelance web dev without a portfolio you should kill yourself

>studying CS

no, i'm actually a cognitive science major.

Way to make assumptions that everyone who creates websites is some mindless entitled 18 year old studying CS using a macbook going to hackathons coding in Ruby, and node.js

>>747997
I don't believe I said anything about giving 50% to anyone besides in satire.

[Anonymous No.748008]

>>748005
>cogsci

Me too. I'm probably going to end up as a user experience researcher /ergonomics guy though.

[Anonymous No.748010]

>>748005

It sounds to me like you have hang-ups about money.

>I just can't monetize because I end up caring too much about the user base I worked to create to go all jewish on them.

Look buddy, you tried to avoid harming your userbase by "going jewish" on them and what happened in the end?

You harmed your userbase in the strongest possible way - by destroying and dissipating them.

Money is not evil, and earning money from your users is certainly not evil PROVIDED you are providing them with an appropriate level of value in return.

Does your university or city have start-up incubators or accelerators? Those might be a solid option for you, and can even help pair you with a cofounder in many cases.

[Anonymous No.748011]

>>748008

Studying for education applications of AI.

[Anonymous No.748014]

>>748010

Okay, what are some resources/boks were I can find inspiration for non-jewish ways of making money?

There are a few startup incubators I can look into.

[Anonymous No.748015]

>>747554
>>747910
i like biz a whole lot more now
lol

[Anonymous No.748030]

>>748014

Unfortunately I am not savvy to monetization of websites (my current venture is a software in the education sphere) and cannot be any help here.

Anecdotally, I can tell you I make my Amazon purchases through affiliate links of podcasts that I support, however, this is likely not the path to financial independence from wage slavery that you seek.

My suggestions are to check out the incubators and see if they have a founder match type deal going on (in Austin, TX, Capital Factory will do exactly that). Tell them your skills and, importantly, that you have the DRIVE and the ENERGY that the start-up world requires.

[Anonymous No.748032]

>>748030
Considering my website was in the education sphere, and very similar to bento.io , only a different format and subject, could you tell me how you might monetize bento.io?

And thank you for your advice!

[Anonymous No.748051]

>>748032

So, the only website I know of that is similar is Treehouse, and they are highly successful, however, they are not free (after a trial) as bento.io is

https://teamtreehouse.com/

If you are insistent on keeping the base service free (I don't know if this is possible, but I am entertaining the idea for thought exercise), then you have to figure out where your customer is going next and if you can earn a referral fee for pointing them in the right direction.

For Bento.io, these individuals (who actually complete the curriculum) will, perhaps, be seeking web hosting and domain services, so you could possibly find a provider in this space and set up some sort of deal for the bento.io users to register a domain and purchase webhosting, with bento.io receiving a small referral kickback.

[Anonymous No.748327]

>>748010
>Money is not evil, and earning money from your users is certainly not evil PROVIDED you are providing them with an appropriate level of value in return.
FUCKING THREAD/

making big bucks doesn't mean going full jew.

[Anonymous No.748346]

>>748032
Honestly you're better off just making youtube videos to teach and having a supplementing website. YT vids are easy to monetize with adsense and you can join treehouse affiliate program and earn even more that way.

[Anonymous No.748377]

SO i got a pretty good resume. I think. I could upload it. and ya guys take a llook?

Because i also want to start my own business. Im 22 and i think i could get a real job while at same time doing my own thing.

I can fix servers, and single PC problems. Should i upload my resume? I honestly want to know if anyone will check it for me. Cause otherwise i wont post it. I feel this is enough but not sure.

[Anonymous No.748540]

>>748377
Just remove your name and contact details and chuck it here as a comment

fyi you're probably gonna be torn apart by /biz/ for every little thing so keep that in mind